NOAA has ranked 2022 as the sixth warmest year on record while NASA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, Berkeley Earth, and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service has ranked it as fifth warmest. This means that the previous eight years have been the eight warmest years on record, and 19 of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
Additionally, the warm global temperatures of 2022 have occurred during La Niña and negative PDO conditions, which typically have a cooling effect on the Earth. This highlights the impact that heat trapping gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), are having on global temperatures. Satellite measurements have indicated that both CO2 and CH4 reached their all-time maximum in 2022. Based on ice-core data and other data sources, the greenhouse gas concentrations measured in 2022 are likely the highest the Earth has seen in hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
For more information, check out Jeff Master’s Yale Climate Connections blog post or the Copernicus summary report.