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2022 is the eighth consecutive year that yearly global temperatures have reached at least 1C above levels seen between 1850 and 1900. Professor Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General, said: “In 2022, we faced several dramatic weather disasters which claimed far too many lives and livelihoods and undermined health, food, energy and water security and infrastructure.
“Large areas of Pakistan were flooded, with major economic losses and human casualties. Record-breaking heat waves have been observed in China, Europe, North and South America.
“The long-lasting drought in the Horn of Africa threatens a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Globally 2022 was the sixth warmest year in a series stretching back to 1850, the WMO revealed.
Professor Tim Osborn, of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, said: “Our global temperature data show that 2022 was consistent with the long-term warming of 0.2C per decade that we have observed over the last 50 years.
“Unless we can take action that slows this rate of warming, the world’s climate will reach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within the next 15 years.”
Global warming and other long-term climate change trends are expected to continue as a result of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the Met Office said.
Professor Osborn added: “Sharp and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would slow, and eventually stop, the climate change trends caused by human activity.”
For a number of countries in Europe, including the UK, Ireland, Spain,
France, Italy and Portugal, 2022 was the hottest year in a dataset going back to 1950.
The UK recorded an annual average temperature of more than 10C for the first time last year, the Met Office said when it confirmed 2022 was the country’s hottest year on record.
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