World In 2002 'Was 5th or 6th Hottest On Record, Depending On Who You Ask

Global trend in temperatures since 1880. See a trend?

Climatologists continue to crunch the numbers on the world's weather and climate for 2022, and it's becoming clear that the year was either the globe's fifth hottest or sixth hottest on record. 

On Thursday, NOAA ranked 2022 as the sixth hottest year on record. Meanwhile, other organizations, including NASA, Copernicus Climate Service of the European Union and Berkeley Earth, an environmental data science non-profit, said Earth had its fifth warmest year in 2022, the Washington Post reports. 

The difference in rankings stems from varying ways scientists measure the Earth's temperature. The differences between the two organizations are only at most a few hundredths of a degree.

According to NOAA' National Centers for Environmental Information, the new data means that all of the last nine years were the Earth's warmest on record and all the top 10 hottest years have occurred since 2010.  If you are under the age of 46, you have never seen a year on Earth that was cooler than the 20th century average. 

The latest count shows 28 nations set new records for warmest year in 2022. They're all over the place, too, not just one region. They include several European nations, China and New Zealand. 

Record breaking, deadly heat waves cropped up all over the world in 2022. Examples include India in March, Pakistan in April, much of western Europe and swaths of the United States, China an Japan in July and August and parts of South America in November and December.    

Additionally, 11 nations or territories broke or tied all time high temperatures. They are Paraguay, Australia, Uruguay, Vatican City, United Kingdom, Jersey, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Barbados, Dominica and the Falkland Islands. 

Extreme droughts and devastating floods hit many countries in 2022,with some nations, like Pakistan and the United States, suffering through both. Droughts and floods have always occurred, of course, but climate change accentuates them, making the disasters more intense than they otherwise would be. 

As the Washington Post reports: 

"Heat record fell last year despite the presence of La Nina, an episodic cooling of the ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific. The Earth's top several warmest years on record have occurred during El Nino events, when the tropical Pacific has been warm. La Nina is likely to fade this year, which could boost the planet's overall temperature and make weather around the world more extreme." 

The UK Met Office is already predicting that on a global basis, 2023 will be hotter than last year, since La Nina will be fading. If El Nino really takes charge, some scientists think 2024 might end up breaking the record for hottest year for Earth on record.