This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2022.
Summaries
~22 January: the International Monetary Fund stated that "Much larger coordinated global policies—including carbon price floors—will be needed to meet the new goals laid out at the (Nov 2021) Glasgow climate conference and stave off catastrophic global climate change. ... Such national-level measures will need to be reinforced with adequately resourced multilateral climate finance initiatives to ensure that all countries can invest in needed mitigation and adaptation measures." 13 September: The United in Science 2022 report is published by the WMO, summarizing latest climate science-related updates and assessing recent climate change mitigation progress as "going in the wrong direction". 26 October: At the 30th anniversary of the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, scientists in a BioScience study concluded that "We are now at 'code red' on planet Earth", presenting new or updated information about "recent climate-related disasters, assess[ed] planetary vital signs, and [...] policy recommendations". (links to BioScience article) The Global Carbon Project reports that carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels, with no sign of the decrease that is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. At the current rate, the carbon that can still be emitted while still meeting the 1.5 °C global goal will likely (at a 50% chance) be emitted within only around nine years.
Measurements and statistics
13 January: Australia matched its hottest reliably recorded temperature near the West Australian town of Onslow, registering 50.7 °C (123.3 °F). February: the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing was the first to rely 100% on artificial snow, exceeding Pyeongchang (2018, 90%) and Sochi (2014, 80%). If global warming continue the trajectory of the preceding two decades, by 2100 the winter games were predicted to be unviable at 20 of 21 former host venues. 1 February: a study published in PLOS Climate reported that, in 2019, 57% of the global ocean surface recorded extreme heat, compared to 2% during the Second Industrial Revolution, and that, between the 1980s and 2010s, the global mean normalized heat index increased by 68.23%. Researchers stated that "many parts of the subtropical and midlatitude regions have reached a near-permanent extreme warming state". 14 February: a study published in Nature Climate Change concluded that the southwestern North American megadrought that began in 2000 was the driest 22-year period in southwestern North America since at least 800 CE, and forecast that this megadrought would very likely persist through 2022, matching the duration of a late-1500s megadrought. 7 March: researchers report in Nature Climate Change that more than three-quarters of the Amazon rainforest has been losing resilience due to deforestation and climate change since the early 2000s as measured by recovery-time from short-term perturbations ("critical slowing down" (CSD)), reinforcing the theory that it is approaching a critical transition. On March 11, INPE reports satellite data that show record-high levels of Amazon deforestation in Brazil for a February (199 km2). 15 March: a Global Energy Monitor report based on mine-level data and modeling determined that coal mining emits 52.3 million tonnes of methane per year, rivaling oil (39 million tonnes) and gas (45 million tonnes), and comparable to the climate impact of the emissions of all coal plants in China. 24 March: a study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change review the biophysical mechanisms by which forests influence climate, showing that beyond 50°N large scale deforestation leads to a net global cooling, that tropical deforestation leads to warming , and that standing tropical forests help cool the average global temperature by more than 1 °C.
30 March: Ember's Global Electricity Review reported that in 2021, wind and solar power reached a record 10% of global electricity, with clean power being 38% of supply, more than coal's 36%. However, demand growth rebounded, leading to a record rise in coal power and emissions. 7 April: NOAA reported an annual increase in global atmospheric methane of 17 parts per billion (ppb) in 2021—averaging 1,895.7 ppb in that year—the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983. The increase during 2020 was 15.3 ppb, itself a record increase. 12 April: a study of 2020 storms of at least tropical storm-strength published in Nature Communications concluded that human-induced climate change increased extreme 3-hourly storm rainfall rates by 10%, and extreme 3-day accumulated rainfall amounts by 5%. For hurricane-strength storms, the figures increased to 11% and 8%. 26 April: The Global Carbon Budget 2021 (published in Earth System Science Data) concludes that fossil emissions rebounded by around +4.8% relative to 2020 emissions – returning to 2019 levels, identifies three major issues for improving reliable accuracy of monitoring, shows that China and India surpassed 2019 levels (by 5.7% and 3.2%) while the EU and the US stayed beneath 2019 levels (by 5.3% and 4.5%), quantifies various changes and trends, for the first time provides models' estimates that are linked to the official country GHG inventories reporting, and shows that the remaining carbon budget at 1. Jan 2022 for a 50% likelihood to limit global warming to 1.5 °C is 120 GtC (420 Gt) – or 11 years of 2021 emissions levels. News report: 26 April: Scientists propose and preliminarily evaluate in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment a likely transgressed planetary boundary for in the water cycle, measured by root-zone soil moisture deviation from Holocene variability. A study published one day earlier in Earth's Future integrates "green water" along with "blue water" into an index to measure and project water scarcity in agriculture for climate change scenarios. 27 April: the second edition of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification's Global Land Outlook concluded that "humans have already transformed more than 70% of the Earth's land area from its natural state, causing unparalleled environmental degradation and contributing significantly to global warming". May: the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reported that a March 2022 aerial survey of the park indicated that 91% of the coral reefs showed "some bleaching", with bleaching patterns "largely consistent with the spatial distribution of heat stress accumulation".
12 May: researchers identify the 425 biggest fossil fuel extraction projects globally, of which 40% as of 2020 are new projects that haven't yet started extraction. They conclude in the Energy Policy study that "defusing" these "carbon bombs" would be necessary for climate change mitigation of global climate goals. News article: On 17 May, a separate study in Environmental Research Letters finds that "staying within a 1.5 °C carbon budget (50% probability) implies leaving almost 40% of 'developed reserves' of fossil fuels unextracted". News article: On 26 May, a study in Nature Climate Change calculates climate policies-induced future lost financial profits from global stranded fossil-fuel assets. News article: 26 May: a study in Nature Climate Change reveals that storms in the Southern Hemisphere have already reached intensity levels previously predicted to occur only in the year 2080. 3 June: the NOAA reports that the global concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is now 50% greater than in pre-industrial times, and is likely at a level last seen 4.1 to 4.5 million years ago, at 421 parts per million (ppm). 20 June: a study in Nature Food suggests global food miles emissions are 3.5–7.5 times higher than previously estimated, with transport accounting for about 19% of total food-system emissions, albeit shifting towards plant-based diets remains substantially more important. 25 June: a study published in Geophysical Research Letters indicates that the Arctic is warming four times faster than global warming now, substantially faster than current CMIP6 models could project. 13 July: A study in Nature affirms (see 7 March) that critical slowing down indicators suggest that tropical, arid and temperate forests are substantially losing resilience. On 4 July, Brazil's INPE reports that the country's regions of the Amazon rainforest have been deforested by a record amount in the first half of 2022. 18 July: a study in Global Change Biology shows that climate change-related exceptional marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean Sea during 2015–2019 resulted in widespread mass sealife die-offs in five consecutive years. 8 August: a study published in Nature Climate Change found that 58% of infectious diseases confronted by humanity have been at times aggravated by climatic hazards, and that empirical cases revealed 1,006 unique pathways in which climatic hazards led to pathogenic diseases. 22 August: a study published in The Cryosphere estimated that 51.5 ±8.0% of Swiss glacier volume was lost between 1931 and 2016, finding that low-elevation, high-debris-cover, and gently sloping glacier termini are conducive to particularly high mass losses. 1 September: a study published in Nature estimated the social cost of carbon (SCC) to be $185 per tonne of —3.6 times higher than the U.S. government's then current value of $51 per tonne. 3 September: for the first time on record, temperatures at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet exceeded the melting point in September. 29 September: a study published in Science reported that the Arctic Ocean experienced acidification rates three to four times higher than in other ocean basins, attributing the acidification to reduced sea ice coverage on a decadal time scale. Reduced sea ice coverage exposes seawater to the atmosphere and promotes rapid uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to sharp declines in pH. 29 September: A study published in Science adds to the accumulating research showing that oil and gas industry methane emissions are much larger than thought. 5 October: a study published by World Weather Attribution concluded that, for the Northern Hemisphere extratropics in 2022, human-induced climate change made drought 20 times worse for root zone soil moisture, and 5 times worse for surface soil moisture. 25 October: The Lancet published a report stating that transitioning to clean energy and improved energy efficiency can prevent 1.2 million annual deaths resulting from exposure to fossil fuel-derived PM2·5 particulates, and that extreme heat due to climate change accounted for an estimated 98 million more people reporting moderate to severe food insecurity in 2020 than the 1981–2010 average. 28 October: a study published in Science Advances estimated that from 1992 to 2013, cumulative global losses due to extreme heat were more than US$16 trillion (likely range: $5–29.3 trillion), also finding that human-caused increases in heat waves depressed economic output most in the poor tropical regions least culpable for warming. 9 November: The largest global inventory and interactive map of greenhouse gas emission sources is released by Climate TRACE. Press release: 11 November: a study published in Earth System Science Data estimated that global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement increased by 1.0% in 2022, hitting a new record high of 36.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2). December: Christian Aid's Counting the cost 2022: a year of climate breakdown reported climate-related losses for Pakistan flooding ($30 billion), U.S./Cuba Hurricane Ian ($100 billion), Europe/UK heatwaves ($20 billion), with each of the top ten costing at least $3 billion.