Events
| Date / period | Type of event | Event | Topics | Image |
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| February 2 | Policy | Global plastic pollution treaty agreement. | ||
Environmental policies approved
Environmental disasters
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| 2022 in science |
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| Technology |
| Social sciences |
| Paleontology |
| Extraterrestrial environment |
| Terrestrial environment |
| Other/related |
This is an article of notable issues relating to the terrestrial environment of Earth in 2022. They relate to environmental events such as natural disasters, environmental sciences such as ecology and geoscience with a known relevance to contemporary influence of humanity on Earth, environmental law, conservation, environmentalism with major worldwide impact and environmental issues.
| Date / period | Type of event | Event | Topics | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2 | Policy | Global plastic pollution treaty agreement. | ||
| To display all pages, subcategories and images click on the "►": |
|---|
| Date / period | Type | Description | Topics | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 10 | Analysis, Assessment | Researchers build upon previous studies documenting biodiversity loss to confirm that a sixth mass extinction event, entirely caused by anthropogenic activity, is currently underway. [2] [3] | [ecosystem] [biodiversity] |  |
| January 10 | Analysis, Proposal | A study quantifies climate change mitigation potentials of 'high-income' nations shifting diets – away from meat-consumption – and restoration of the spared land. [4] [5] | [agriculture] [food] |  |
| January 18 | Analysis, Assessment | A study suggests and defines a 'planetary boundary' for novel entities such as plastic- and chemical pollution and finds that it has been crossed. [6] [7] | [plastic pollution] |  |
| January 18 | Analysis, Assessment | A study for the first time attempts to assess and quantify complete societal costs of cars (i.e. car-use, etc). [8] | [policy] |  |
| February 1 | Analysis, Assessment, Observation | The American Geophysical Union reports, based on a study by Chinese scientists published in November, that climate change has likely begun to suffocate the world's fisheries, passing a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021. [9] [10] | [climate change] [food system] |  |
| February 3 | Observation, Development | The first comprehensive global map of oil and gas "ultra-emitters" of the potent greenhouse gas methane based on satellite data is published. [11] [12] [13] | [methane emissions] |  |
| February 9 | Development[ relevant? ] | Researchers report the development of a viable flash JH-based process to recover rare-earth elements used in modern electronics from industrial wastes with practical potential to reduce environmental/health impacts from mining, waste-generation and imports if it can be scaled up. [14] [15] | [circular economy] |  |
| February 14 | Observation, Assessment | The most comprehensive study of pharmaceutical pollution of the world's rivers finds that it threatens "environmental and/or human health in more than a quarter of the studied locations". [16] [17] | [water pollution] |  |
| February 15 | Analysis, Projections | NASA publishes its latest Sea Level Rise Technical Report, an update of the 2017 edition, which includes projections for sea-level rise through to the year 2150. The agency warns that sea levels may rise as much over the next 30 years as during the previous 100. [18] [19] | [sea level rise] |  |
| February 16 | Analysis | A study models the system of coupled feedback processes (including potential mitigation tipping points) that may shape the trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions over the century in the contemporary socioeconomic system if it both persists as is and its components remain largely unreformed. Broad factor-domains include public perceptions of climate change, future mitigation technologies' characteristics, and the responsiveness of political institutions. [20] [21] | [climate change] |  |
| February 17 | Development[ relevant? ] | Bionanotechnologists report the development of a viablebiosensor, ROSALIND 2.0, that can detect levels of diverse water pollutants. [22] [23] | [water pollution] |  |
| February 23 | Development[ relevant? ] | Researchers report the development of a quantum gradiometer – an atom interferometer quantum sensor – which could be used to map and investigate subterraneans. [24] [25] | [sensing] |  |
| February 23 | Analysis, Review, Projections | UN researchers publish a comprehensive study about climate change impacted wildfires with projections (e.g. a 31–57% increase of extreme wildfires by 2100) and information about impacts and countermeasures. [26] [27] | [wildfires] |  |
| February 28 | Analysis, Assessment | A study shows annual carbon emissions (or carbon loss) from tropical deforestation have doubled during the last two decades and continue to increase. [28] [29] | [deforestation] [climate change] |  |
| February 28 | Review | The IPCC releases the second part of its Sixth Assessment Report on climate change. It shows that any further delay in concerted global action would mean missing the rapidly closing window to secure human wellbeing and the planet's health against cascading impacts. [30] [31] | [climate change] |  |
| March 1 | Analysis, Observation | Atmospheric scientists report that the 2022 volcano eruption in Tonga, Pacific Ocean – the largest recorded volcanic eruption since 1991 which reportedly cooled global climate by ~0.6 °C during 15 months [32] – did not have a cooling effect (volcanic winter) of significance to global climate change (i.e. a cooling of ~0.004 °C during the first year). [33] [34] | [climate change] [volcanoes] |  |
| March 7 | Analysis, Observation | Researchers report that more than three-quarters of the Amazon rainforest has been losing resilience due to deforestation and climate change since the early 2000s as measured by recovery-time from short-term perturbations ("critical slowing down" (CSD)), reinforcing the theory that it is approaching a critical transition. [35] [36] On March 11, INPE reports satellite data that show record-high levels of Amazon deforestation in Brazil for a February (199 km²). [37] | [deforestation] | |
| March 7 | Analysis, Observation | A study suggests that half of the US population has been exposed to substantially detrimental lead levels in early childhood – mainly from car exhaust whose lead pollution peaked in the 1970s. [38] [39] [ globalize ] | [toxins] [transport] |  |
| March 9 | Analysis | Researchers report that, on average, the elderly played "a leading role in driving up GHG emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor" due to factors such as demographic transition, low informed concern about climate change and high expenditures on carbon-intensive products like energy which is used i.a. for heating rooms and private transport. [40] [41] | [climate change] |  |
| March 10 | Analysis, Assessment, Proposal | A study estimates that "relocating current croplands to [environmentally] optimal locations, whilst allowing ecosystems in then-abandoned areas to regenerate, could simultaneously decrease the current carbon, biodiversity, and irrigation water footprint of global crop production by 71%, 87%, and 100%", with relocation only within national borders also having substantial potential. [42] [43] | [food system] |  |
| March 16 | Analysis, Observation | Researchers report that over 80% of the growth of methane emissions during 2010–2019 was caused by tropical terrestrial emissions. [44] [45] | [methane emissions] | |
| March 21 | Observation, Analysis | Before formal publication of the 'Global Carbon Budget 2021' preprint, [46] scientists report, based on Carbon Monitor [47] data, that after COVID-19-pandemic-caused record-level declines in 2020, global CO2 emissions rebounded sharply by 4.8% in 2021, indicating that at the current trajectory, the 1.5 °C carbon budget would be used up within 9.5 years with a two-thirds likelihood. [48] | [climate change] |  |
| March 24 | Review | Scientists review the biophysical mechanisms by which forests influence climate, showing that beyond 50°N large scale deforestation leads to a net global cooling, that tropical deforestation leads to substantial warming from non-CO2-impacts, and that as well as how standing tropical forests help cool the average global temperature by more than 1 °C. [49] [50] | [climate change] [deforestation] |  |
| March 31 | Analysis | Depletion of ozone in the stratosphere and, more importantly (60%), ozone increase in the troposphere is shown to be responsible for ~30% of upper Southern Ocean interior warming between 1955 and 2000. [51] [52] | [ozone] |  |
The sulfate or sulphate ion is a polyatomic anion with the empirical formula SO2−4. Salts, acid derivatives, and peroxides of sulfate are widely used in industry. Sulfates occur widely in everyday life. Sulfates are salts of sulfuric acid and many are prepared from that acid.
Climate change mitigation (or decarbonisation) is action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. Climate change mitigation actions include conserving energy and replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sources. Secondary mitigation strategies include changes to land use and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Costs of climate change mitigation are estimated at around 1% and 2% of GDP. Current climate change mitigation policies are insufficient as they would still result in global warming of about 2.7 °C by 2100, significantly above the 2015 Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to below 2 °C.
The clathrate gun hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the periods of rapid warming during the Quaternary. The hypothesis is that changes in fluxes in upper intermediate waters in the ocean caused temperature fluctuations that alternately accumulated and occasionally released methane clathrate on upper continental slopes. This would have had an immediate impact on the global temperature, as methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Despite its atmospheric lifetime of around 12 years, methane's global warming potential is 72 times greater than that of carbon dioxide over 20 years, and 25 times over 100 years. It is further proposed that these warming events caused the Bond Cycles and individual interstadial events, such as the Dansgaard–Oeschger interstadials.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide, from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, is one of the most important factors in causing climate change. The largest emitters are China followed by the United States. The United States has higher emissions per capita. The main producers fueling the emissions globally are large oil and gas companies. Emissions from human activities have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 50% over pre-industrial levels. The growing levels of emissions have varied, but have been consistent among all greenhouse gases. Emissions in the 2010s averaged 56 billion tons a year, higher than any decade before. Total cumulative emissions from 1870 to 2022 were 703 GtC, of which 484±20 GtC from fossil fuels and industry, and 219±60 GtC from land use change. Land-use change, such as deforestation, caused about 31% of cumulative emissions over 1870–2022, coal 32%, oil 24%, and gas 10%.
Due to climate change in the Arctic, this polar region is expected to become "profoundly different" by 2050. The speed of change is "among the highest in the world", with the rate of warming being 3-4 times faster than the global average. This warming has already resulted in the profound Arctic sea ice decline, the accelerating melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the thawing of the permafrost landscape. These ongoing transformations are expected to be irreversible for centuries or even millennia.
In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large, accelerating and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society and may accelerate global warming. Tipping behavior is found across the climate system, for example in ice sheets, mountain glaciers, circulation patterns in the ocean, in ecosystems, and the atmosphere. Examples of tipping points include thawing permafrost, which will release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, or melting ice sheets and glaciers reducing Earth's albedo, which would warm the planet faster. Thawing permafrost is a threat multiplier because it holds roughly twice as much carbon as the amount currently circulating in the atmosphere.
Arctic methane release is the release of methane from Arctic ocean waters as well as from soils in permafrost regions of the Arctic. While it is a long-term natural process, methane release is exacerbated by global warming. This results in a positive climate change feedback, as methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. The Arctic region is one of many natural sources of methane. Climate change could accelerate methane release in the Arctic, due to the release of methane from existing stores, and from methanogenesis in rotting biomass. When permafrost thaws as a consequence of warming, large amounts of organic material can become available for methanogenesis and may ultimately be released as methane.
Atmospheric methane is the methane present in Earth's atmosphere. The concentration of atmospheric methane is increasing due to methane emissions, and is causing climate change. Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases. Methane's radiative forcing (RF) of climate is direct, and it is the second largest contributor to human-caused climate forcing in the historical period. Methane is a major source of water vapour in the stratosphere through oxidation; and water vapour adds about 15% to methane's radiative forcing effect. The global warming potential (GWP) for methane is about 84 in terms of its impact over a 20-year timeframe, and 28 in terms of its impact over a 100-year timeframe.
The permafrost carbon cycle or Arctic carbon cycle is a sub-cycle of the larger global carbon cycle. Permafrost is defined as subsurface material that remains below 0o C for at least two consecutive years. Because permafrost soils remain frozen for long periods of time, they store large amounts of carbon and other nutrients within their frozen framework during that time. Permafrost represents a large carbon reservoir, one which was often neglected in the initial research determining global terrestrial carbon reservoirs. Since the start of the 2000s, however, far more attention has been paid to the subject, with an enormous growth both in general attention and in the scientific research output.
Aerobic methane production is a potential biological pathway for atmospheric methane (CH4) production under oxygenated conditions. The existence of this pathway was first theorized in 2006. While significant evidence suggests the existence of this pathway, it remains poorly understood and its existence is controversial. Naturally occurring methane is mainly produced by the process of methanogenesis, a form of anaerobic respiration used by microorganisms as an energy source. Methanogenesis usually only occurs under anoxic conditions. By contrast, aerobic methane production is thought to occur in oxygenated environments under near-ambient conditions. The process involves non-microbial methane generation from terrestrial plant-matter. Temperature and ultraviolet light are thought to be key factors in this process. Methane may also be produced under aerobic conditions in near-surface ocean water, a process which likely involves the degradation of methylphosphonate.
Deforestation is a primary contributor to climate change, and climate change affects the health of forests. Land use change, especially in the form of deforestation, is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, after the burning of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases are emitted from deforestation during the burning of forest biomass and decomposition of remaining plant material and soil carbon. Global models and national greenhouse gas inventories give similar results for deforestation emissions. As of 2019, deforestation is responsible for about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation are accelerating.
Increasing methane emissions are a major contributor to the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, and are responsible for up to one-third of near-term global heating. During 2019, about 60% of methane released globally was from human activities, while natural sources contributed about 40%. Reducing methane emissions by capturing and utilizing the gas can produce simultaneous environmental and economic benefits.
A carbon budget is a concept used in climate policy to help set emissions reduction targets in a fair and effective way. It examines the "maximum amount of cumulative net global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that would result in limiting global warming to a given level". It can be expressed relative to the pre-industrial period. In this case, it is the total carbon budget. Or it can be expressed from a recent specified date onwards. In that case it is the remaining carbon budget.
The amount of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is significant: The agriculture, forestry and land use sector contribute between 13% and 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions come from direct greenhouse gas emissions. and from indirect emissions. With regards to direct emissions, nitrous oxide and methane make up over half of total greenhouse gas emission from agriculture. Indirect emissions on the other hand come from the conversion of non-agricultural land such as forests into agricultural land. Furthermore, there is also fossil fuel consumption for transport and fertilizer production. For example, the manufacture and use of nitrogen fertilizer contributes around 5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock farming is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, livestock farming is affected by climate change.
A climate target, climate goal or climate pledge is a measurable long-term commitment for climate policy and energy policy with the aim of limiting the climate change. Researchers within, among others, the UN climate panel have identified probable consequences of global warming for people and nature at different levels of warming. Based on this, politicians in a large number of countries have agreed on temperature targets for warming, which is the basis for scientifically calculated carbon budgets and ways to achieve these targets. This in turn forms the basis for politically decided global and national emission targets for greenhouse gases, targets for fossil-free energy production and efficient energy use, and for the extent of planned measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
This is an article of notable issues relating to the terrestrial environment of Earth in 2020. They relate to environmental events such as natural disasters, environmental sciences such as ecology and geoscience with a known relevance to contemporary influence of humanity on Earth, environmental law, conservation, environmentalism with major worldwide impact and environmental issues.
This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2021.
This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2022.
This article lists a number of significant events in science that have occurred in the first quarter of 2022.
This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2023.
