PARIS
\nThe last eight years were the warmest on record even with the cooling influence of a La Nina weather pattern since 2020, the European Union\u2019s climate monitoring service said Tuesday.
\nAverage temperatures across 2022 \u2014 which saw a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change \u2014 make it the fifth warmest year since records began in the 19th century, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
\nPakistan and northern India were scorched by a two-month spring heatwave with sustained temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius, followed in Pakistan by flooding that covered a third of the country.
\nFrance, Britain, Spain and Italy set new average temperature records for 2022, with Europe as a whole enduring its second hottest year ever, Copernicus said in an annual report.
\nHeatwaves across the continent were compounded by severe drought conditions.
\nEuropean temperatures have increased by more than twice the global average over the past 30 years, with the region showing the highest rate of increase of any continent on the globe.
\n\u201c2022 was yet another year of climate extremes across Europe and globally,\u201d said deputy head of the Copernicus climate change service Samantha Burgess in a statement.
\n\u201cThese events highlight that we are already experiencing the devastating consequences of our warming world.\u201d
\nLarge swathes of the Middle East, China, central Asia and northern Africa also saw unprecedented warmth averaged across the whole of 2022.
\nChina and western Europe reported negative impacts on agriculture, river transport and energy management related to weather conditions.
\nEarth\u2019s polar regions also experienced record temperatures last year as well.
\nThe remote Vostok station deep in the interior of East Antarctica reached a relatively balmy minus 17.7C, the warmest ever measured in its 65-year history.
\nAt the other end of the globe, Greenland experienced September temperatures 8C higher than average, accelerating ice sheet loss that has become a major contributor to sea level rise.
\nThe hottest years on record globally so far are \u2014 in descending order \u2014 2016, 2020, 2019 and 2017, according to Copernicus.
\nThe atmospheric concentrations of the two main greenhouse gases that drive global warming \u2014 carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) \u2014 also continued a decades-long climb to record levels.
\nCO2 levels rose to 417 parts per million \u2014 the highest level in over two million years. Methane rose to 1,894 parts per billion to levels not seen in 800,000 years.
\n\u201cAtmospheric concentrations are continuing to rise with no sign of slowing,\u201d said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS The last eight years were the warmest on record even with the cooling influence of a La Nina weather pattern since 2020, the European Union\u2019s climate monitoring service said Tuesday. Average temperatures across 2022 \u2014 which saw a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change \u2014 make it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-306722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n