Countries all over the world saw one climate disaster after another this year.
There were relentless heat waves, deep freezes, and hurricanes so destructive they caused billions of dollars worth of damage. An ongoing drought in the U.S. West has communities restricting water use and desperate for new sources of freshwater. Officials and disaster response agencies have had to scramble to respond to compounding emergencies.
While weather disasters are a natural phenomenon, human-caused climate change is making them more frequent and more intense. Heat waves that are supposed to happen only every decade are now twice as likely to occur; extreme droughts are occurring 70% more frequently.
These were some of the major climate events of 2022, and the human impacts that followed.
