In 2022, Associated Press photographers captured signs of a planet in distress as climate change reshaped many lives.
That distress was seen in the scarred landscapes in places where the rains failed to come. It was felt in walloping storms, land-engulfing floods, suffocating heat and wildfires no longer confined to a single season. It could be tasted in altered crops or felt as hunger pangs when crops stopped growing. And taken together, millions of people were compelled to pick up and move as many habitats became uninhabitable.
2022 will be a year remembered for destruction brought on by a warming planet and, according to scientists, was a harbinger for even more extreme weather.
Residents look for victims in an area affected by deadly landslides in Petropolis, Brazil, on Feb 16. (Silvia Izquierdo)
A volunteer swings a tree branch in an attempt to prevent a forest fire from reaching houses in the village of Casal da Quinta, outside Leiria, central Portugal, on July 12. (Joao Henriques)
Letoyie Leroshi gives cows groundwater from a well, a lifeline in the drought-stricken area of Kom village, Samburu County, Kenya, on Oct 15. (Brian Inganga)
Bruce Hickey, 70, walks along the waterfront, now littered with debris including shrimp boats, in the mobile home park where he and his wife, Kathy, have a winter home on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on Oct 5, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. (Rebecca Blackwell)
A wildfire consumes an area near Victoria, Entre Rios province, Argentina, on Aug 19. (Natacha Pisarenko)
A goose walks on a dried bed of Lake Velence in Velence, Hungary, on Aug 11. (Anna Szilagyi)
A migrant worker lies on a cot by a road after fleeing his house along the flooded banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi, on Sept 28. (Altaf Qadri)
People wade through a flooded road after heavy rains in Gauhati, Assam state, India, on June 14. (Anupam Nath)
Stephanie Williams, 60, cools off with water from a hydrant in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles on Aug 31. (Jae C Hong)
Winnie Keben becomes emotional as she speaks to a reporter in Baringo County, Kenya, on July 21, and recounts how she lost her leg in a crocodile attack. That accident plus the loss of her home to rising water drove her and her family from their village. (Brian Inganga)
Residents push a boat through a flooded street to rescue a neighbor unable to leave his home on his own during a tropical cyclone in Havana, Cuba, on June 3. (Ramon Espinosa)
Amid a severe drought, people arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, on Sept 21. (Jerome Delay)
Alcindo Farias Junior, who works in the production of acai, shows fruits that have had their color and taste altered by increasing incursions of salty waters in the community of Vila de Sao Pedro in the Bailique Archipelago, state of Amapa, northern Brazil, on Sept 11. (Eraldo Peres)
A police officer gives water to a British soldier wearing a traditional bearskin hat on guard duty outside Buckingham Palace, during a heat wave in London, on July 18. (Matt Dunham)
Jerifa Islam stands outside her home on July 20 in a poor neighborhood in Bengaluru, India, where her family relocated after flooding in 2019 pushed them from their Himalayan village. (Aijaz Rahi)
Wind whips embers from a burning tree during a wildfire near Hemet, California, on Sept 6. (Ringo HW Chiu)
Bobby Rhinebolt, right, smokes a cigarette while sitting beside Victor Perez near a formerly sunken boat that is now above the waterline at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, near Boulder City, Nevada, on June 22. (John Locher)
People walk through floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Hadeja, Nigeria, on Sept 19.
Suratmi, who like many in Indonesia goes by one name, lies in her bed as her daughter Ngatiroh, right, walks on the floor that has been raised to keep flood water from entering their house in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, on July 30. (Dita Alangkara)
A Somali woman breastfeeds her child at a camp for displaced people suffering amid a major drought on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, on Sept 20. (Jerome Delay)
Maasai children stand beside a zebra that local residents say died due to drought, as they graze their cattle at Ilangeruani village, near Lake Magadi, in Kenya, on Nov 9. (Brian Inganga)
Seal hunter Wilbur Kuzuzuk, 53, drags a spotted seal, his only catch of the day, to the edge of the lagoon in Shishmaref, Alaska, on Oct 4. (Jae C Hong)
Barnabas Kantor works from the pool while his wife, Rebeka, left, and sister-in-law, Emma, cool down in Budapest, Hungary, on Aug 4. (Anna Szilagyi)
A dog named Kaloua sits next to freshly caught salmon along the Columbia River, which like other major river systems has been impacted by climate change in several ways, in Bonneville, Oregon, on June 20. (Jessie Wardarski)
Northern gannets dive for fish near Perce Rock just after sunrise in Perce, Quebec, Canada, on Sept 15. (Carolyn Kaster)
Parched sunflowers stand in Kochersberg, near Strasbourg, in eastern France, on Aug 28. (Jean-Francois Badias)
People cool off at an urban beach in Madrid Rio park during a heat wave in Madrid on July 13. (Manu Fernandez)
A teacher dries out books at a school that was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ian in La Coloma, in the province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on Oct 5. (Ramon Espinosa)
A house sits in Rock Creek after floods washed away a road and a bridge in Red Lodge, Mont., on June 15. (David Goldman)
Houseboats sit on land affected by drought near the Solimoes River, in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Oct 19. (Edmar Barros)
Nalangu Lekoomet weeps as she holds her malnourished son Peisaal Loitibik in West Gate Village, Samburu County, Kenya, on Oct 13. She explains that the 2-year-old collapsed because of starvation. (Brian Inganga)
A woman dries flood-damaged corn crops on a road near a paddy field in Morigaon district, Assam state, India, on June 28. (Anupam Nath)
A woman hesitates to share a piece of palm fruit with her friend in the village of Lomoputh, in northern Kenya, on May 12. (Brian Inganga)
Fishermen who participate in a sustainability initiative to protect population levels of pirarucu fish prepare to transfer their catch and then transport it to a processing ship in Carauari, Brazil, on Sept 6. (Jorge Saenz)
The remains of trees destroyed by bark beetle and drought are visible in the Harz forest at Brocken Mountain, near Schierke, Germany, on July 17. (Matthias Schrader)
Firefighters and police evacuate an elderly woman from her house amid wildfires in Penteli, Greece, on July 19. (Thanassis Stavrakis)
Park ranger Angelic Lemmon walks across reef-like structures called microbialites, exposed by receding waters, at the Great Salt Lake, near Salt Lake City, on Sept 28. (Rick Bowmer)
Flames engulf a chair inside a burning home as the Oak Fire rages in Mariposa County, California, on July 23. (Noah Berger)
Nomadic women milk Himalayan goats that produce cashmere on Sept 17, in the remote Kharnak village in the cold desert region of Ladakh, India, an area particularly vulnerable to climate change. (Mukhtar Khan)
A man stands in shallow water near the dry riverbed of the Yangtze River in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality on Aug 19. (Mark Schiefelbein)
Jose Penin, 72, walks with his brother Julio, 78, as they visit Aceredo, an old village that had been submerged three decades ago when a hydropower dam flooded the valley but could be seen above ground this year in the wake of a drought at the Lindoso reservoir, in northwestern Spain, on Feb 11. (Emilio Morenatti)
A family crosses a raised walkway in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, on July 31. (Dita Alangkara)
Flood victims from monsoon rain use a makeshift barge to carry hay for cattle, in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, on Sept 5. (Fareed Khan)
A walkway goes through ponds and islets at the "Fish Tail" sponge park that's built on a former coal ash dump site to prevent flooding and collect water for times of drought in Nanchang in China's Jiangxi province on Oct 30. (Ng Han Guan)
