November 6, 2022

expert reaction to 2022 State of the Global Climate report published by the WMO

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have published their latest report on the state of the global climate.

Prof Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading, said:

“As a scientist, and as a citizen, I am almost at a loss. This is not just another news story. While British politicians and media focus on self-obsessed politicians sending swear words to each other over invitations to a funeral, I want to send swear words to them all: read the damn report and do something about it, now. Or it will be everyone’s funeral.

“This is evidence from the past year from every corner of the world showing that sea levels continue to rise faster, lethal heatwaves are getting hotter, and the time we have to change course gets shorter.

“The leaders of nations gathering in Egypt may feel like they have a lot on their plates at the moment. But history will judge them, and us, as the most pathetic, short sighted and stupid generation that ever lived if we continue to ignore the evidence, and don’t take the last credible off-ramp available to us.”

Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, Chair of the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, at Imperial College London, said:

“A year of punishing heatwaves and droughts and floods in many parts of the world, and record heat stored in the climate system. The record rise in atmospheric methane, a strong greenhouse gas, and the accelerating rise in sea level are particularly concerning.  One detail sums it up: Switzerland has lost more than a third of its glacier volume since 2001.

“How much more warning do they need before the countries of the world will move from talk and promises to real action?”

Prof Mike Meredith, oceanographer and Science Leader at the British Antarctic Survey, said:

“The messages in this report could barely be bleaker – all over our planet, records are being shattered as different parts of the climate system begin to break down. The loss of ice is especially alarming – the impacts on people, societies and economies are huge, and it’s only going to get worse unless major action takes place straight away. If this doesn’t focus the minds of the global leaders at CoP, I don’t know what will.”

Dr Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London

“2022 was a year of extreme events, the report mentions a few of them, without mentioning the role of climate change in them, or the word attribution at all. But we do know that many of these disastrous events, the floods and heat in Pakistan, the floods and tropical cyclones in Southern Africa, Hurricane Ian, the extreme heat and drought in Europe, would have less severe if it wasn’t for climate change.”

Prof Bill Collins, Professor of Climate Processes, University of Reading, said:

“News on the state of the climate is becoming ever more alarming as temperatures are getting ever closer to breaching the 1.5 degree limit set in the Paris Agreement. What is worse is that we are still heading in the wrong direction by increasing the amount of greenhouse gases we pump out each year rather than the drastic reductions that are needed and promised. Methane levels have gone up by the largest amount on record. This is an important greenhouse gas that comes from leaky pipes, fracking and agriculture.

“The State of the Global Climate report shows that we have passed the tipping point for some glaciers in the Alps, it is too late to save them and to prevent them adding to rising sea levels. The good news is it is not too late to stop temperatures rising inexorably if we take immediate action to make deep reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions. This means ratcheting up the ambition from the promises made last year at COP 26 in Glasgow.”

Prof Dave Reay, Executive Director of Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, University of Edinburgh, said:

“The State of the Global Climate? Parlous. If there was ever a year to swamp, shred and burn off the blinkers of global climate inaction then 2022 should be it. The world now has a monumental job of damage limitation. This includes redoubling efforts to cut emissions and give us more than the cat in hell’s chance we currently have of meeting the Paris Climate Goals. It also means going hard at adaptation, protecting the most vulnerable and embedding climate resilience into every investment, every policy and every community.”

Additional quotes from British Antarctic Survey scientists:

Ice modeller Dr Alex Bradley from British Antarctic Survey, said:

“Sea levels are rising fast, and, at the current rate will have risen about 1 metre by the end of the century. But that number could be much higher, depending especially on what happens in Antarctica. The warming highlighted by the WMO report is putting Antarctic ice shelves under extreme pressure: the ice sheet is shrinking quickly, but has the potential to do so much more rapidly. The future of the ice shelves, which currently hold this ice sheet back and delay the sea level rise, are looking increasingly precarious because of increased melting from above and below, as the report highlights. Sea level rise also highlights how the effects of climate change are global and unfairly distributed: greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from richer countries, lead to increased ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica. The result is rising sea levels globally, but the impacts are disproportionately shouldered by poor countries.”

Glaciologist Dr Alex Brisbourne from British Antarctic Survey, said:

“We know from the satellite record that sea level rise has accelerated over the last 30 years. Until now this has mostly resulted from the thermal expansion of the oceans and melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet. However, the contribution from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is becoming more important and will come to dominate sea level rise this century. One key area of concern is Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, which covers an area the size of Great Britain and has the potential to add around 60 cm to global sea level. The ice sheet here sits below sea level and so is responding quickly to the warming ocean. Because of its geometry, Thwaites Glacier is potentially unstable, and ice loss beyond a certain point may result in runway retreat, accelerating sea level rise to rates that become unmanageable for coastal communities around the world. We don’t yet know when we will hit this tipping point but without rapid change to global greenhouse gas emissions the chances of this happening are significantly increased.”

Climate scientist Dr Ella Gilbert from British Antarctic Survey, said:

“The latest WMO report shows that the cryosphere is in crisis, with glaciers shrinking, Arctic sea ice in dramatic decline and rain recorded on the Greenland ice sheet for the first time. This year’s unprecedented heat and extreme weather is another reminder of the urgency of action to limit warming to 1.5°C. The polar regions may seem far from COP27 in Egypt, but this report shows that the poles are closer than we think, impacting sea level and water resources worldwide.”

Oceanographer Dr Kate Hendry from British Antarctic Survey, said:

“The melting of Arctic sea ice in recent years really has become the climate change equivalent of the ‘canary down the mine’. The reduction in the thickness, extent, and age of Arctic sea ice has been dramatic, with this year continuing the trend with sea ice extent in the Arctic well below the long-term average for most of the year. These changes in sea ice dynamics have significant impacts on local ecosystems, fundamentally changing how microscopic algae grow in the water, take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and use nutrients from seawater. Shifts in algal populations will have knock-on effects all the way up the food chain – impacting the people who rely on fisheries for their livelihoods as well as top predators such as polar bears. As well as local and regional impacts, there are consequences of sea ice loss felt further afield: what goes on in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Mid-latitude weather systems and extreme events, including in the UK, are influenced by physical connections and feedbacks between sea ice, the oceans and the atmosphere. But these interactions are complex: we don’t yet have enough observations and we don’t yet fully understand the underlying processes, meaning that making weather forecasts and longer-term climate models that can track these processes is extremely challenging.”

Declared interests

For all experts, no response to our request for declarations of interest was received.