From land to ocean, climate change continued to advance into 2022 and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions led to global temperature records, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels. This is what the new annual report of the UN, released on Friday (21), on the eve of Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, showed. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the trend is expected to continue for thousands of years and raises the level of alert for extreme weather events, which threaten the existence of entire nations.

"We have the tools, the knowledge and the solutions. But we have to pick up the pace. We need accelerated climate action with deeper and faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We also need massively expanded investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities that have done the least to cause the crisis," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Data from the "State of the Global Climate 2022" report showed that the global temperature was 1.15°C above the 1850-1900 average and that the years 2015 to 2022 broke a record: they were the eight warmest, even with the cooling of a La Niña event in the last three years. At the same time, the concentration of major greenhouse gases in 2021 – the last year with consolidated data – also surpassed the worst mark.

When it comes to the ocean, global sea levels rose by 4.62 mm per year between 2013 and 2022, more than double the pace recorded in the first decade from 1993 to 2002. That's a total increase of more than 10cm since the early 1990s and threatens some coastal cities and low-lying nations such as the island of Tuvalu – which plans to build a digital version of itself should it be submerged.

Melting glaciers in the period from 2005 to 2019 and the total loss of ice in Greenland and Antarctica contributed 36 percent to sea level rise and warming waters contributed 55 percent, the report said. Overall, the reference glaciers experienced an average thickness reduction of more than 1.3 meters between October 2021 and October 2022, a loss much greater than the average for the past decade.

Sea ice in Antarctica fell to 1.92 million km² on February 25, 2022, the lowest level ever recorded and almost 1 million km² below the long-term average – from 1991 to 2020. The Greenland ice sheet ended with a negative total mass balance for the 26th consecutive year. According to the latest IPCC, globally glaciers lost more than 6,000 Gt of ice in the period from 1993 to 2019. This represents a volume of water equivalent to 75 lakes the size of Lake Geneva, the largest lake in Western Europe.

In addition, ocean warming rates have been significantly high over the past two decades and even with La Niña conditions, 58% of the ocean surface has experienced at least one heatwave in 2022.

"While greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase and the climate continues to change, populations around the world continue to be severely affected by extreme weather events. For example, in 2022, continued droughts in East Africa, record rainfall in Pakistan, and record heatwaves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, caused food insecurity, drove mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage," WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said in the statement.

In addition to climate indicators, the report brings the main socio-environmental impacts: increased malnutrition and food insecurity, drought in East Africa, floods in Pakistan, record heat waves in Europe, population displacements by weather events, and even changes in ecosystems and the environment, such as when trees bloom or birds migrate.

The UN report is released after the State of the Climate in Europe by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service and complements the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which brings data up to 2020.

Source: Um só Planeta