2022 among 8 hottest years on record: UN

The past eight years were the hottest since records began, the United Nations confirmed Thursday, despite the cooling influence of a drawn-out La Nina weather pattern.

Last year, as the world faced a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change, the average global temperature was about 1.15 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organization said.

The US NOAA and Nasa released similar 2022 global temperature figures on Thursday and Bill Nelson, head of the US space agency, described them as "alarming."

The WMO, a UN agency, said the past eight years "were the warmest on record globally, fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat."

The hottest year on record was 2016, followed by 2019 and 2020, it found.

Last year marked the eighth consecutive year that annual global temperatures were at least one degree over the pre-industrial levels seen between 1850 and 1900.

The Paris Agreement, called for capping global warming at 1.5C, which scientists say would limit climate impacts to manageable levels.

The UN agency highlighted that the warmest eight years on record had all been since 2015, despite consecutive La Nina events since 2020.

The weather phenomenon has a cooling effect on global temperatures.