Government agencies: ’22 one of the hottest years ever on Earth
DENVER — Earth’s fever persisted last year, not quite spiking to a record high but still in the top five or six warmest on record, government agencies reported Thursday.
But expect record-shattering hot years soon, likely in the next couple years because of “relentless” climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, U.S. government scientists said.
Despite a La Nina, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that slightly reduces global average temperatures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates 2022’s global average temperature was 58.55 degrees, ranking sixth hottest on record. NOAA doesn’t include the polar regions because of data concerns, but soon will.
If the Arctic — which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world — and Antarctic were factored in, NOAA said it would be fifth warmest. NASA, which has long factored the Arctic in its global calculations, said 2022 is essentially tied for fifth warmest with 2015. Four other scientific agencies or science groups around the world put the year as either fifth or sixth hottest.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said global temperature is “pretty alarming ... What we’re seeing is our warming climate, it’s warning all of us. Forest fires are intensifying. Hurricanes are getting stronger. Droughts are wreaking havoc. Sea levels are rising. Extreme weather patterns threaten our well-being across this planet.”
Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit group of independent scientists, said it was the fifth warmest on record and noted that for 28 countries it was the hottest year on record, including China, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany and New Zealand.
Trump campaign event:
Former President Donald Trump is planning to hold the first public campaign event of his 2024 White House bid in the early-voting state of South Carolina.
Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Thursday that the event will happen this month. No other details were immediately announced.
Trump’s plan to visit to South Carolina comes as two of the state’s top Republicans mull 2024 bids of their own.
Nikki Haley, a former governor and onetime
U.N. ambassador, said she would take the holiday season to consider a White House campaign. However, Haley said in 2021 that she wouldn’t seek the presidency if Trump were in the race. Tim Scott, recently reelected to what he has said will be his final U.S. Senate term, has been making visits in other early-voting states and launched a PAC that could become a presidential campaign vehicle.
A group of 46 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday demanding former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s diplomatic visa be canceled in the wake of the rampage in Brazil’s capital by his supporters.
“We request that you reassess his status in the country to ascertain whether there
Brazil uprising:
is a legal basis for his stay and revoke any such diplomatic visa he may hold,” said the letter. The letter was led by Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas, Gregory Meeks of New York, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania.
It isn’t certain which visa Bolsonaro used to enter the United States on Dec. 30, just before the end of his presidential term. He is staying in a home outside Orlando, Florida, and video has shown him snapping photos with supporters in the gated community and walking in a supermarket.
The Israeli military shot and killed three Palestinians during arrest raids in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, the latest bloodshed in months
Mideast violence:
of rising violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
The military, which has been carrying out nearnightly raids in the territory since early last year, said soldiers who entered the Qalandia refugee camp before dawn were bombarded by rocks and cement blocks. In response, the military said troops opened fire at Palestinians throwing objects from rooftops. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed as Samir Aslan, 41.
The Israeli army also raided the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday, entering the village of Qabatiya south of the city of Jenin and surrounding a house in the town. The Palestinian Health inistry reported that Israeli forces fatally shot 25-year-old Habib Kamil and 18-year-old Abdel Hadi Nazal.