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2022 Was One of the Five Hottest Years on Record, Scientists Find

Last year was also the warmest ever recorded in 28 countries, continuing a decades-long upward trend of global temperatures. 

Exposed banks, due to low water levels caused by drought, along the Han River near the confluence with the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China, on Aug. 22, 2022. 

Exposed banks, due to low water levels caused by drought, along the Han River near the confluence with the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China, on Aug. 22, 2022. 

Bloomberg
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In 2022, enormous rivers critical to trade dried up temporarily in Europe, the US and China. A third of Pakistan was inundated by monsoon rain. Ocean temperatures set a new record. Twenty-eight countries weathered their hottest years. An estimated 850 million people lived through their hottest-ever local average temperatures. 

Last year was the fifth or sixth hottest year in records dating back as far as the mid-19th century, according to new temperature data released Thursday by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office, the nonprofit Berkeley Earth and the Japanese Meteorological Agency.