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  • Covid-19 delays UN nuclear treaty assembly, presumably until August

    A coronavirus surge has upended plans to carry a significant nuclear treaty convention on the United Nations, with members agreeing Thursday to postpone the assembly simply days earlier than its scheduled begin.
    After almost two years of pandemic delays, delegations from around the globe had been scheduled attributable to converge on U.N. headquarters Tuesday to take inventory of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pillar of nuclear arms management.But organizers at the moment are penciling in an August 1 begin date for the already long-delayed convention, in accordance with an e mail Thursday from the U.N. disarmament workplace to entities concerned.
    An inquiry was despatched Thursday night to the convention’s chief, Gustavo Zlauvinen.
    The treaty is the world’s most generally ratified nuclear arms management settlement, with 191 collaborating international locations.
    Nations with out atomic weapons dedicated to not purchase them and to permit verification that nuclear power packages weren’t morphing into weaponry. Countries that had nuclear weapons when the treaty was signed– the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — agreed to maneuver towards eliminating them.
    Review conferences are scheduled each 5 years to evaluate implementation and attempt to hash out new commitments, although members typically have been unable to agree on any remaining declaration or plan. That occurred on the final assembly, in 2015.
    The subsequent gathering was initially scheduled for spring 2020 however has repeatedly been pushed again due to the pandemic.
    As coronavirus instances spike once more within the U.N.’s host metropolis of New York and a rising variety of staffers are sick or are quarantined, the world physique instructed Zlauvinen on Monday that it couldn’t accommodate a giant gathering now. The group steered transferring the convention on-line or delaying it.
    After discussions with members, Zlauvinen stated Wednesday that there was little urge for food to proceed with subsequent week’s begin date.
    “This is a regrettable decision, but the present circumstances do not leave us any other choice,” wrote Zlauvinen, an Argentine diplomat and former International Atomic Energy Agency official.
    There have been additional consultations Thursday concerning the assembly’s timing and format.
    Besides governments, arms management teams even have been keenly awaiting the convention at a time when points vary from the frayed Iran nuclear deal to established atomic-armed powers’ work to modernize their arsenals.
    “The further postponement of the NPT Review Conference is very unfortunate and should not be used as an excuse not to pursue actions necessary to curb the accelerating global nuclear arms race,” stated Daryl Kimball, the manager director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

  • UN refugee chief warns of world’s lack of ability to revive peace

    The rising lack of ability of the worldwide group to revive peace in international locations like Yemen, Libya and Ethiopia is forcing humanitarian and refugee organizations to work more and more throughout conflicts which they’ll’t clear up regardless of the expectations of many individuals caught up in these crises, the U.N. refugee chief warned Tuesday.
    Filippo Grandi reminded the U.N. Security Council that within the absence of political options to conflicts — “and those political solutions seem to be more and more scarce and far apart” — the implications on individuals caught in these violent confrontations “continue to become more and more serious.”
    The U.N. excessive commissioner for refugees mentioned his workplace and different organizations are coping with about 84 million refugees who fled throughout borders and other people displaced inside their very own international locations, making an attempt to supply humanitarian help, shelter and security.

    Grandi spoke to the council and U.N. correspondents from Geneva the place donors pledged a report of greater than $1 billion Tuesday to help UNHCR’s work in 2022. While he welcomed their essential help, Grandi mentioned the pledges received’t be sufficient to help the rising challenges the company foresees subsequent yr, largely pushed by battle, local weather change and COVID-19.
    The excessive commissioner mentioned UNHCR is interesting for practically $9 billion to cowl its operations in 136 international locations and territories subsequent yr. Almost half the cash is for emergencies to help a report variety of forcibly displaced individuals, particularly within the Middle East and Africa in addition to hundreds of thousands who’ve fled their properties in locations like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Venezuela and past, he mentioned.
    Asked whether or not he noticed any hope for the numerous hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced individuals in 2022, Grandi mentioned “I see glimmers of hope everywhere — if certain things are done.”
    “The question is will these things be done?” he requested. “Will states cooperate more to try and solve these issues? Will more resources be put into responses? Will be will the neutrality and safety of humanitarian operations be granted?”
    “I remain not terribly optimistic about progress on these matters, especially on cooperation and the search of solutions,” he mentioned.
    Grandi mentioned if it took “excruciating negotiations” within the Security Council to get approval to proceed supply of humanitarian assist by way of a single crossing level from Turkey into Syria, “then we are in trouble, then we cannot really aim at moving forward.”
    “So yes, I think the prospects, unfortunately, are rather grim in terms of the size of the problem and the complexity of the causes,” he mentioned.
    Grandi mentioned UNHCR works in extremely politicized conditions, and more and more it has to take care of “de facto authorities” who usually are not internationally acknowledged however management areas in lots of international locations the place it operates as a result of individuals need assistance. These conditions are fairly often sophisticated by political difficulties, sanctions and different restrictions on dialogue and engagement which irritate the availability of humanitarian wants, he mentioned.
    Grandi mentioned he’s usually warned by international locations that UNHCR mustn’t politicize humanitarian motion, however “I keep reminding states that if anybody politicizes humanitarian action it is the states, not the United Nations as an institution, not UNHCR for sure.”
    Nonetheless, he mentioned, UNHCR is being accused by all sides in Ethiopia, for instance, of supporting the opposite aspect which he warned isn’t secure for its employees or conducive to efficient humanitarian motion.
    “We operate in context in which there is more burden, expectation that humanitarian actors can solve problems, when in reality, the space is reduced even for us to save lives,” he mentioned.
    Grandi mentioned he simply returned from a tour of Mexico and northern Central America the place he noticed “the incredible complexity of the causes of displacement” — battle, human rights abuses, violence by felony gangs, poverty, inequality, local weather change and an insufficient response by states.
    He mentioned the complexity of causes in Central America, Africa’s Sahel area, and elsewhere results in “increasingly complicated forced displacement.”
    Grandi mentioned his message to the Security Council was to give attention to one of many causes — battle — as a result of if progress could be made towards stability then maybe “the vicious circle” resulting in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of individuals could be unblocked.
    He additionally appealed to the council to supply “the widest scope for humanitarian exception” to U.N. sanctions on Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers to assist the 23 million Afghans going through excessive ranges of starvation and different humanitarian challenges.
    Grandi warned {that a} widespread implosion of the Afghan economic system will nearly inevitably set off a a lot greater exodus of Afghans in search of a greater life in neighboring international locations and past.
    “This is something that can still be prevented at this point, but it requires quicker action” to make sure that the economic system features together with the circulate of money and companies, he mentioned. this with its leaders.

  • UN airlifts winter shelters for displaced Afghans

    The UN refugee company UNHCR began to airlift provides to Kabul on Tuesday to assist a whole bunch of hundreds of displaced Afghans construct shelters forward of the winter.
    The UNHCR stated a primary aircraft was on account of arrive afterward Tuesday, carrying 33 tonnes of kits which comprise flooring and partitions to enhance tent insulation. Two different flights are deliberate on Nov. 4 and seven.
    “More resources are urgently needed to reach all those who will need help to survive the harsh winter ahead,” UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo instructed a briefing in Geneva.
    The UNHCR stated it’s dashing to supply winter help to some 500,000 displaced Afghans, returnees and native host communities by the top of 2021.
    It has already offered support together with shelter, meals, blankets and range to half one million Afghans this yr.
    Afghanistan was plunged into disaster in August after Taliban fighters drove out a Western-backed authorities, prompting donors to carry again billions of {dollars} in help for the aid-dependent financial system.

    Many Afghans are promoting possessions to purchase meals with the Taliban unable to pay wages to civil servants, and concrete communities are dealing with meals insecurity on ranges just like rural areas for the primary time.
    Aid teams are urging international locations, involved about human rights underneath the Taliban, to interact with the brand new rulers to stop a collapse they are saying might set off a migration disaster just like the 2015 exodus from Syria that shook Europe.

  • Greenpeace chief warns of ‘greenwashing’ at UN local weather talks

    The head of environmental group Greenpeace on Thursday warned in opposition to efforts by international locations and firms on the forthcoming U.N. local weather talks in Glasgow to “greenwash” their ongoing air pollution of the planet.
    The summit hosted by Britain has been described as “ the world’s last best chance ” to stop world warming from reaching harmful ranges, and is predicted to see a flurry of recent commitments from governments and companies to scale back their emissions of greenhouse gases.
    But local weather campaigners say behind-the-scenes lobbying earlier than the summit might hamper efforts to realize an formidable deal that may make sure the world stands an opportunity of capping world warming at 1.5 levels Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as agreed in Paris in 2015.
    “This Glasgow meeting really is a vital moment where governments need to be courageous,” mentioned Jennifer Morgan, the chief director of Greenpeace International.
    “They need to show they’ve understood the science, listen to their people and go much further than they’ve been stating thus far,” she informed The Associated Press in an interview.
    The head of environmental group Greenpeace warned in opposition to efforts by international locations and firms to “greenwash” their ongoing air pollution of the planet on the upcoming U.N. local weather talks. (AP)
    By doing so, governments would “give that kind of hope and confidence to their people that they got this and that they’re willing to do things that their corporate interests don’t want them to do,” she added.
    Morgan pointed to leaked paperwork exhibiting how international locations akin to Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia are apparently attempting to water down an upcoming U.N. science panel report on world warming as proof of the way in which wherein some governments’ public help for local weather motion is undermined by their efforts behind closed doorways.
    Documents obtained by Greenpeace point out how these international locations wished the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to take away references to the necessity to shut down coal-fired energy stations, scale back meat consumption and deal with precise emissions cuts fairly than methods to seize carbon already launched into the environment.
    In this Feb. 1, 2020, file photograph a fireplace burns within the grass close to Bumbalong, south of the Australian capital, Canberra. (AP)
    A spokesman for the IPCC’s secretariat in Geneva downplayed the influence such lobbying efforts have on the panel’s ultimate stories.
    “Review by governments and experts is a fundamental part of the IPCC process for preparing reports,” mentioned the spokesman, Jonathan Lynn. “The IPCC principles are designed to ensure that this review contributes to a comprehensive, balanced and objective assessment in an open and transparent way.”
    Australian Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor’s workplace mentioned in an announcement that to say Australia “commenting on a draft is somehow ‘interference’ is categorically false.”
    All feedback acquired by the IPCC are revealed with their stories as they’re finalized. “This ensures complete transparency,” the assertion mentioned.

    Greenpeace’s Morgan mentioned a lot of the lobbying is pushed by firms, a few of which will even be on the so-called COP26 talks — together with as a part of authorities delegations.
    “They’ll try and use this COP to show that they care, that they are really doing a lot,” mentioned Morgan. “There’ll be a big greenwashing effort in Glasgow that needs to be called out and recognized.”
    Governments, too, are possible to make use of the U.N. talks to announce new local weather measures, at the same time as they foyer in opposition to others, she mentioned.
    “If you look at what they’re doing to try and hold back the world from moving forward, it’s stunning,” she mentioned. “It’s immoral, it’s unacceptable.”

    Greenpeace and different environmental marketing campaign teams have been important of a wave of bulletins by international locations and trade teams, starting from airways to transport corporations, to goal for ‘net zero’ emissions. Rather than lower greenhouse gasoline emissions to nil, these aiming for internet zero pledge to launch solely as a lot carbon dioxide or different pollution into the environment by a sure date as may be captured once more.
    The math round internet zero is murky and activists say if it’s not scientifically rigorous that concentrate on dangers detracting from the hassle to chop emissions as shortly as potential.
    “(Some companies) want to continue what they’re doing, but they want to pay just to plant trees somewhere else,” mentioned Morgan. “That is not the solution to the nature and biodiversity crisis.”

    She cited a latest report by the International Energy Agency which concluded that there may be no extra new coal mines or oil and gasoline wells if the Paris objective is to be achieved. Yet final week, a separate U.N.-backed research discovered that even present fossil gasoline manufacturing plans for the approaching decade would lead to over twice the emissions allowed for the world to take care of an opportunity of assembly the Paris targets.
    Morgan mentioned the highlight being placed on the talks in Glasgow and a few events’ efforts to bloc agreements on delicate points might embolden these international locations that need an formidable deal.
    “They have to be ready to move, go beyond their comfort zones and come together because you can see the level of opposition that’s coming in at them,” she mentioned.
    A bunch of 9 nations, together with Costa Rica, Sweden and the Marshall Islands, on Thursday known as for international locations that haven’t but performed so to replace their local weather targets forward of the Oct. 31-Nov. 12 talks in Glasgow. They additionally backed a long-standing demand from poor nations for wealthy international locations to make good on their pledge of offering $100 billion in support every year to deal with local weather change.

  • U.N. blames worst South Sudan floods since 1962 on local weather change

    More than 700,000 individuals have been affected by flooding in South Sudan, the U.N. refugee company UNHCR stated on Tuesday, blaming local weather change for the worst floods in some components of the African nation in practically 60 years.
    “The country is on the front line of the climate emergency, where the people are the collateral damage of a battle they did not pick,” Arafat Jamal, UNHCR consultant in South Sudan, instructed a U.N. briefing in Geneva through video hyperlink from the capital, Juba.

    South Sudan is on the frontline of world local weather disaster, its persons are collateral injury in a battle they didn’t choose, and from whose carbon-fuelled positive factors they scarcely profit. My briefing right this moment to the UN press corps in Geneva.https://t.co/4jp6lY1apu
    — Arafat Jamal (@jhamal4) October 19, 2021
    Jamal stated 700,000 had been affected to date and the quantity was rising. He had no dying toll from the latest flooding. Heavy rains in latest weeks have swept away houses and inundated farmlands, forcing households and livestock to hunt security on greater floor, Jamal stated.

    The UNHCR stated the floods primarily affected 4 states, and in some areas have been the worst since 1962, with individuals’s means to manage eroded by three years of consecutive flooding. Some individuals have been stranded and compelled to outlive by consuming grass or roots, whereas others have walked for days to succeed in dry land, Jamal stated.
    Cattle had drowned and crops similar to sorghum and millet been destroyed, he stated. “The more that is lost the more people become dependent on aid,” he stated.

    The rains are anticipated to proceed for the remainder of the 12 months and to extend the variety of individuals needing help, and the motion of individuals to greater floor was rising the danger of battle between communities, the UNHCR stated.
    Nearly a decade after South Sudan gained independence following a warfare, it faces the specter of battle, local weather change and COVID-19, the outgoing head of the U.N. mission within the nation stated in March. Nearly all of the inhabitants relies on worldwide meals help, and most elementary companies similar to well being and training are supplied by the U.N. and help teams.

  • Degrees of hazard: What will the world seem like if we miss our local weather targets?

    Time is working out. The scale of motion we have to defend the local weather is large, it has to occur quick, and the plans on the desk are falling quick.
    In 2015, virtually the entire world’s nations agreed to restrict the temperature improve to 2 levels Celsius (3.6 F) above preindustrial ranges, and to goal for a restrict of 1.5 C underneath the Paris Agreement.  So far, the precise commitments made to chop fossil gasoline use and different measures to cut back emissions of greenhouse gases into the environment — if carried by — will solely get us all the way down to 2.7 C of warming, the UN has warned.
    At the tip of this month, world leaders will meet in Glasgow for the twenty sixth version of the UN Climate Change Conference. And the stress is on to give you rather more radical measures to fulfill the Paris goal.

    But what distinction does a fraction of a level make? Well, quite a bit, in response to the huge physique of scientific analysis being finished globally to evaluate the impacts of local weather change.
    A wood cutout encourages folks to take a seat with others subsequent to an outdated windmill as steam billows from a nuclear energy plant in Doel, Belgium. (AP)
    With climate-induced disasters already taking place throughout the globe, the dimensions of the issue can appear unmanageable. Yet whereas science does paint a bleak image, it additionally exhibits that limiting warming by what looks as if a tiny quantity can save many hundreds of thousands of lives, defend huge areas of land from degradation and provides different species an opportunity of survival.
    According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) newest report, launched in August, the worldwide temperature has already risen by 1.07 C for the reason that industrial revolution. And we are able to already see that simply 1 diploma of warming has had an enormous affect.
    Every centimeter of sea-level rise might put hundreds of thousands in danger
    Take sea-level rise. So far, we’ve pushed the common international sea degree up by about 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) since 1901, in response to the IPCC.
    That won’t sound like a lot, nevertheless it’s already forcing folks from their properties all around the world. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, a whole lot of hundreds of persons are being displaced yearly by floods in low-lying areas of Bangladesh.

    According to data-driven local weather web site Carbon Brief, which analyzed 70 peer-reviewed scientific research in 2018, with 1.5 C of warming, we’re a world sea-level rise of 48 centimeters by the tip of this century, in comparison with 56 centimeters if we hit 2 levels.
    And simply 8 centimeters means all of the distinction for hundreds of thousands of individuals. According to the IPCC, each 10 centimeters of sea-level rise impacts as much as one other 10 million folks world wide.
    A little bit little bit of warming means quite a lot of rain
    The newest IPCC report says the form of “extreme rainfall event” that, earlier than the economic revolution would happen as soon as each 10 years, is now taking place about 30% extra usually. At 1.5 levels of warming, the chance goes up by 50% — and the severity of the occasion will increase too, changing into 10.5% wetter. At 2 levels, such an occasion turns into 70% extra probably, and 14% wetter.
    For a rustic like India, this implies a really completely different future. According to insurance coverage agency Munich Re, floods and landslides prompted over 700 deaths and $11 billion (€9.5 billion) in injury over 2018 and 2019.
    According to Carbon Brief, with 1.5 C of warming, the financial injury from flooding within the nation would improve greater than three and a half occasions and at 2 levels, almost 5 and a half occasions.
    Longer, drier droughts
    While some areas of the planet will get wetter, others will get drier, with equally catastrophic outcomes. In 2018, the IPCC mentioned limiting international warming to 1.5 C in comparison with 2 C might imply half as many individuals uncovered to water stress.
    In its newest report, the IPCC says what would have been once-a-decade droughts earlier than the Industrial Revolution at the moment are 70% extra probably. At 1.5 C they change into twice as frequent, and at 2 levels, they’ll occur 2.4 occasions as usually.
    According to the Carbon Brief, globally, the common size of a drought goes up by two months with 1.5 levels of warming, by 4 months at 2 levels, and a whopping 10 months at 3 levels of warming.

    In 2019, the World Food Programme mentioned that 2.2 million folks in Central America’s “dry corridor” had suffered crop losses as a consequence of drought and 5 consecutive years of erratic climate. In February this yr, that determine that gone as much as almost 8 million, partly because of the financial affect of the pandemic, which compounded “years of extreme climate events,” but additionally because of Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which hit Central America in November 2020.
    How a lot worse issues get within the area will rely on the local weather motion we take. According to Carbon Brief, at 1.5 levels of warming, the common size of droughts in Central America will prolong by 5 months, at 2 levels of warming by eight months, and at 3 levels by 19 months.

    Small numbers, massive dangers
    And alongside drought come heatwaves and the right situations for the form of fires which have roared all over the place. from California to Southern Europe and Indonesia to Australia, over latest years. The IPCC says limiting warming to 1.5 C in comparison with 2 C might cut back the variety of folks regularly uncovered to excessive heatwaves by about 420 million.
    If these figures are mind-boggling, the human price of those apparently small increments in warming is sort of unimaginable to understand. The lives destroyed, starvation, homelessness and poverty, imply unquantifiable struggling. And they’ll exacerbate or precipitate political tensions in methods we are able to’t predict, resulting in conflicts we are able to nonetheless solely guess at.
    What we do know for positive, is that in terms of local weather change, apparently small numbers could make all of the distinction.

  • Empty desk array at UN spotlights misplaced studying in pandemic

    While world leaders converge on the UN headquarters subsequent week, the coronavirus can be on the agenda — and a set of empty, backpack-draped chairs and desks will symbolise what the pandemic has completed to schooling.
    In entrance of the desks, a blackboard-like show will rely the variety of in-person class hours misplaced throughout the pandemic: over 1.8 trillion and rising, based on UNICEF, the UN kids’s arm.
    It organized the set up, unveiled on Friday, on the headquarters grounds to induce leaders to prioritise reopening colleges.

    “Next week, the United Nations will open its doors to delegations from around the world. But in many countries, the doors of schools will remain closed to children and young people,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres mentioned in a press release. “We are short-changing an entire generation.”

    UNICEF says about 131 million kids have missed out on three-quarters of their in-person instruction since March 2020, and practically 77 million of them have missed virtually all of it.
    Schools are nonetheless totally or partially closed in about 27 per cent of nations, based on the company.

  • Iran escapes rebuke at IAEA regardless of no ‘promise’ on open questions

    Western powers on Monday scrapped plans for a decision criticising Iran on the UN atomic watchdog after Tehran agreed to delay monitoring of some nuclear actions, despite the fact that the watchdog mentioned Iran made no “promise” on one other key situation.
    The determination by the United States, France, Britain and Germany to not push for a decision at this week’s assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors avoids an escalation with Iran that would have killed hopes of resuming wider talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.
    During a last-minute go to to Tehran this weekend by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, Iran agreed to grant his company overdue entry to its gear in Iran that screens some delicate areas of its nuclear programme. Inspectors will swap out reminiscence playing cards greater than two weeks after they have been due to get replaced.
    Grossi mentioned on Sunday that the settlement solved “the most urgent issue” between the IAEA and Iran. He made clear on Monday, nevertheless, that on one other supply of concern – Iran’s failure to elucidate uranium traces discovered at a number of outdated however undeclared websites – he had obtained no agency commitments.
    “I did not receive any promise,” Grossi informed a information convention when requested in regards to the uranium traces, the primary of which have been discovered greater than two years in the past at a web site in Tehran that Iran has described as a carpet-cleaning facility.

    “What I said there … is that I need to have a clear conversation with the new government about this.”
    A joint assertion by the IAEA and Iran on Sunday mentioned Grossi would meet Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami in Vienna subsequent week after which Grossi would “visit Tehran in the near future to hold high level consultations with the (Iranian) government”.
    Grossi declined to say extra particularly whom he would meet in Tehran or when.

    The purpose of the weekend settlement was to purchase time for wider diplomatic efforts geared toward bringing the United States and Iran absolutely again into the 2015 nuclear deal, which imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear actions in return for the lifting of worldwide sanctions in opposition to Tehran.
    Pressure
    Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in 2018, re-imposing punishing financial sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded as of a yr later by breaching lots of the deal’s restrictions and later enriching uranium to purity ranges a lot nearer to weapons-grade.

    Indirect talks between Iran and the United States stopped in June, days after hardliner Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of Iran. Western powers have known as on Iran to return to negotiations, saying time is operating out, whereas Raisi has mentioned Iran is prepared to, however with out Western “pressure”.
    “Iran played its cards well,” one Vienna-based diplomat mentioned of the weekend settlement. “The promise to continue high-level discussions on the outstanding issues managed to deflate the pressure for a resolution, even if what Grossi brought back from Tehran was pitifully little.”

  • Afghans face ‘their most perilous hour’, warns UN boss

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday referred to as for donors to pledge a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for Afghanistan, saying that poverty was spiralling and many individuals may run out of meals by the tip of the month.
    “After decades of war, suffering and insecurity, they face perhaps their most perilous hour,” he mentioned in opening remarks at a Geneva convention the place $606 million is being sought.
    “The people of Afghanistan are facing the collapse of an entire country — all at once.”

  • UN company confirms document warmth of 18.3 levels Celsius in Antarctica

    The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, on July 1, recognised a brand new document excessive temperature for Antarctica. On February 6, 2020, the Esperanza station (the Argentine analysis station in Trinity Peninsula) skilled 18.3 levels Celsius.
    “Verification of this maximum temperature record is important because it helps us to build up a picture of the weather and climate in one of Earth’s final frontiers. Even more so than the Arctic, the Antarctic is poorly covered in terms of continuous and sustained weather and climate observations and forecasts, even though both play an important role in driving climate and ocean patterns and in sea-level rise,” mentioned WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas in an announcement.
    “The Antarctic Peninsula is among the fastest-warming regions of the planet, almost 3°C over the last 50 years. This new temperature record is therefore consistent with the climate change we are observing.” The earlier document for prime temperature was 17.5 levels Celsius, recorded on March 24, 2015, on the similar station.
    A WMO committee carried out in depth research to grasp the climate state of affairs throughout the time of the reported information and famous that a big high-pressure system over the world has created Föhn circumstances.
    “Föhn or Foehn winds are generally categorised by warm dry air motion descending in the lee or downwind side of a mountain. When the wind hits the mountain in its way, it rises above and causes precipitation in the upwind side of the mountain, while the downwind side of the mountain becomes dry and warm. These winds can warm the surface air temperature in the downwind side by several degrees for a prolonged time,” defined Sourav Chatterjee from the Atmosphere-Ocean Interaction Studies Division, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Goa.
    “Although the melting of ice mostly happens in summer in the presence of sunlight, these Foehn winds can cause significant melting during even dark polar winters,” he mentioned.
    “Rising global air and ocean temperature are posing a threat to ice sheets and glaciers in the polar regions. The warming temperature and increasing strength of westerly winds can enhance the Antarctic ice sheet melting even in winter due to the Foehn wind effect,” he added.