Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-166
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-166
05 May 2023
 | 05 May 2023
Status: a revised version of this preprint was accepted for the journal ESSD and is expected to appear here in due course.

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022: Annual update of large-scale indicators of the state of the climate system and the human influence 

Piers Maxwell Forster, Christopher J. Smith, Tristram Walsh, William F. Lamb, Matthew D. Palmer, Karina von Schuckmann, Blair Trewin, Myles Allen, Robbie Andrew, Arlene Birt, Alex Borger, Tim Boyer, Jiddu A. Broersma, Lijing Cheng, Frank Dentener, Pierre Friedlingstein, Nathan Gillett, José M. Gutiérrez, Johannes Gütschow, Mathias Hauser, Bradley Hall, Masayoshi Ishii, Stuart Jenkins, Robin Lamboll, Xin Lan, June-Yi Lee, Colin Morice, Christopher Kadow, John Kennedy, Rachel Killick, Jan Minx, Vaishali Naik, Glen Peters, Anna Pirani, Julia Pongratz, Aurélien Ribes, Joeri Rogelj, Debbie Rosen, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Sonia Seneviratne, Sophie Szopa, Peter Thorne, Robert Rohde, Maisa Rojas Corradi, Dominik Schumacher, Russell Vose, Kirsten Zickfeld, Xuebin Zhang, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, and Panmao Zhai

Abstract. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement that will conclude at COP28 in December 2023. Evidence-based decision making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles.

We base this update on the assessment methods used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report, updating the monitoring datasets and to produce updated estimates for key climate indicators including emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, surface temperature changes, the Earth’s energy imbalance, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open data, open science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7883758, Smith et al., 2023). As they are traceable and consistent with IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel.

The indicators show that human induced warming reached 1.14 [0.9 to 1.4] °C over the 2013–2022 period and 1.26 [1.0 to 1.6] °C in 2022. Human induced warming is increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2 °C per decade. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high of 57 ± 5.6 GtCO2e over the last decade, as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling. Despite this, there are signs that emission levels are starting to stabilise, and we can hope that a continued series of these annual updates might track a real-world change of direction for the climate over this critical decade.

Piers Maxwell Forster et al.

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Greet Janssens-Maenhout, 09 May 2023
    • CC3: 'Reply on RC1', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • CC7: 'Reply on RC1', Robin Lamboll, 16 May 2023
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC2: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 May 2023
    • CC4: 'Reply on RC2', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • CC1: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Rasmus Benestad, 10 May 2023
    • CC2: 'Reply on CC1', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC5: 'Reply on CC1', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC3: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Matthew Jones, 10 May 2023
    • CC5: 'Reply on RC3', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC4: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Albertus J. (Han) Dolman, 15 May 2023
    • CC6: 'Reply on RC4', Piers M. Forster, 15 May 2023
    • AC4: 'Reply on RC4', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • CC8: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Leon Simons, 16 May 2023
    • CC9: 'Reply on CC8', Christopher Smith, 18 May 2023
  • RC5: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Martin Heimann, 17 May 2023
    • AC6: 'Reply on RC5', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Greet Janssens-Maenhout, 09 May 2023
    • CC3: 'Reply on RC1', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • CC7: 'Reply on RC1', Robin Lamboll, 16 May 2023
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC2: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 May 2023
    • CC4: 'Reply on RC2', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • CC1: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Rasmus Benestad, 10 May 2023
    • CC2: 'Reply on CC1', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC5: 'Reply on CC1', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC3: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Matthew Jones, 10 May 2023
    • CC5: 'Reply on RC3', Piers M. Forster, 13 May 2023
    • AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • RC4: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Albertus J. (Han) Dolman, 15 May 2023
    • CC6: 'Reply on RC4', Piers M. Forster, 15 May 2023
    • AC4: 'Reply on RC4', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023
  • CC8: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Leon Simons, 16 May 2023
    • CC9: 'Reply on CC8', Christopher Smith, 18 May 2023
  • RC5: 'Comment on essd-2023-166', Martin Heimann, 17 May 2023
    • AC6: 'Reply on RC5', Piers M. Forster, 24 May 2023

Piers Maxwell Forster et al.

Data sets

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022 Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, Piers Forster, Nathan Gillett, Mathias Hauser, William Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Matthew Palmer, Aurélien Ribes, Dominik Schumacher, Sonia Seneviratne, Blair Trewin, and Karina von Schuckmann https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7883758

Model code and software

Indicators of Global Climate Change Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, Piers Forster, Nathan Gillett, Mathias Hauser, William Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Matthew Palmer, Aurélien Ribes, Dominik Schumacher, Sonia Seneviratne, Blair Trewin, and Karina von Schuckmann https://github.com/ClimateIndicator

Remaining carbon budget calculation Robin Lamboll and Joeri Rogelj https://github.com/Rlamboll/AR6CarbonBudgetCalc

Piers Maxwell Forster et al.

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Discussed

Latest update: 02 Jun 2023
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Short summary
This is a critical decade for climate action but there is no annual tracking of the level of human-induced warming. We build from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports that are authoritative but published infrequently to create a set of key global climate indicators that can be tracked through time. Our hope is that this becomes an important annual publications that policymakers, media, scientists and the public can refer to.