News
Assessing the Global Climate in 2022
According to NOAA scientists, the global surface temperature for 2022 was the sixth highest since record keeping began in 1880. In a separate analysis of global temperature data also released today, NASA ranks 2022 as the fifth-warmest year on record, tying with 2015.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
State of Play
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.