World Meteorological Day 2021, March 23

WMO Secretary-General StatementforWorld Meteorological Day, 2021“The Ocean: Our Climate and Weather”

 World Meteorological Day in 2021 is devoted to the theme “the ocean, our climate and weather.” It celebrates WMO’s focus in connecting the ocean, climate and weather within the Earth System. Our changing climate is warming the ocean, having a profound effect on our weather. The WMO’s annual State of the Global Climate report, shows that 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, despite La Nina cooling in the Pacific Ocean. The past decade from 2011-2020 was the warmest on record. Ocean heat is at record levels, ocean acidification is continuing. Sea ice is melting. The rate of sea level rise has accelerated. During the past year, we have seen prolonged droughts that extended fire seasons throughout the world. Devastating wildfires in Australia, for example, were linked to ocean temperatures influencing drier seasonal climate patterns. Warm ocean temperatures helped fuel a record Atlantic hurricane season, and unusually intense tropical cyclones in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans. The storm surge damage in these areas demonstrated the power of the ocean and its devastating impact on coastal communities. Non-tropical ocean storms continued to wreak havoc aboard ships, with additional losses of life and cargo at sea. In 2020, the annual Arctic sea ice minimum was among the lowest on record. Polar communities suffered abnormal coastal flooding, and sea ice hazards as a result of melting ice. In view of this, the WMO community has a major stake in supporting research, observations, predictions, and services for the ocean as much for as the atmosphere, land, and cryosphere. Major gaps in data over the ocean hinder our ability to accurately forecast weather at extended time scales and, more so, sub-seasonal to seasonal. The WMO Data Conference in November 2020 recognized major gaps in data, particularly over the ocean. It highlighted the need for free and open access to Earth system data, to maximize the overall economic impact of these data. WMO has a large number of partnerships, including with the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, to better understand, observe, and predict the ocean as part of our Earth System. With more than 40% of the global population living within 100km of the coast, there is an urgent need to keep communities safe from the impacts of coastal hazards. WMO and its Members work to support coastal management and resilience and strengthen Multi Hazard Early Warning Systems. Nearly 90% of world trade is carried across the sea and is exposed to the dangers of extreme maritime weather. WMO partners with the International Maritime Organization and the International Hydrographic Organization to provide standardized information, forecasts and warnings to ensure the safety of life and property at sea. The coming Decade will be a critical one for addressing ways to adapt and mitigate to climate change impacts. WMO is helping in this effort, as a designated Nominator for the Earth Shot Prize (2021 to 2030), seeking solutions for urgent environmental challenges, including the ocean and climate. This year is also important for the WMO to mark the start of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). WMO is committed to contributing with much of its work integral for the “safe ocean”, “predicted ocean” and “transparent ocean” goals of the Decade. Together with partners, WMO is striving to strengthen the Earth System Science to services. To understand our weather and climate, we must understand our ocean. We will continue working towards this, to protect vulnerable communities and in support of the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and SAMOA Pathway. WMO is leading several important global initiatives during the coming year to address priorities of our members: 1. The importance of enhancing the global basic observing network and putting in place an innovative financing facility SOFF to ensure systematic weather and climate observations especially for LDCs and SIDs 2. Secondly, we are creating a water and climate coalition for accelerating action on SDG 6, which is related to water. 3. And thirdly, we would like to ensure enhance the multi hazard early warning system and services of all our Member Countries. I wish you all a happy World Meteorological Day.

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FORUM: "The ocean, our climate and weather."World Meteorological Day 2021.

When it comes to the

Weather conditions

and

Climate variation

, most of us think only about what is happening in the

Atmospheric air pressure

. If we ignore the

Ocean basin

, however, we miss a big piece of the picture.

Thr

World Meteorological Day 2021

CEREMONY will start at 1200 GMT with

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas UN Special UN-Oceans Envoy,

Law of the sea convention

Peter Thomson (who narrated this video)

UN Climate Change

Action envoy Selwyn Hart Director of Germany's

Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

, Antje Boetius Climate Resilience/Youth Empowerment Advocate, Salvador Gómez-Colón Alexia Barrier, Yachtswoman , 2020–2021 Vendée Globe Rachel Moriarty, Head, Prize Design and Impact,

Earthshot Prize

Ceremony

The ocean is the Earth’s thermostat and conveyor belt; It is hit hard by Climate change. Ocean heat, acidification, sea level rise threaten ecosystems and human and food security. World Meteorological Day highlights how observations, research and services are more critical than ever before for more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface which is simultaneously increasingly vulnerable and perilous.

1. How the ocean shapes weather and climate?
2. Ensuring safety at sea and on land
3. Observing the ocean
4. Forecasting climate variability
5. The ocean and climate change
6. SDGs and other initiatives

World Meteorological Day 2014, March 23.

Message on the occasion of WMD 2014 "Weather & climate: Engaging Youth" by Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of WMO. 

Recognizing the strong stake that young people have in the future, WMO has chosen “Weather and climate: engaging youth” as the theme for this year’s World Meteorological Day.

Today, people between the ages of 15 and 24 make up a sixth of the world’s population. About 85 per cent of these 1 billion young men and women live in developing countries. Compared to their peers of only 50 years ago, the young people of today are on average healthier, more educated and skilled. Technologies permeate their lives, enabling them to better interact with the world around them. Yet many young people still suffer from poverty and discrimination, inequality and exploitation; many of them still lack access to education, health and other basic services.

These problems are exacerbated by the hazards of climate change and extreme weather, which characterize the lives of young people today and will have an even greater impact in the decades to come. Atmosphere and ocean temperatures continue to increase, ice caps and glaciers around the world are steadily declining, sea level is rising and a number of extreme weather and climate events are becoming more frequent and/or more intense.

Human influence on the climate system is unequivocal. The global concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps growing unabated and is reaching unprecedented levels in human history. Maintaining our current dependence on fossil fuels will lead us to a significantly warmer planet: by the end of the century the temperature could be up to
4 degrees Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times. Limiting the warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius can still be achieved, but it will require a rapid significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Achieving this objective demands urgent, decisive and courageous action. The world’s youth can be a powerful actor of change in this regard. Climate action is not just about CO2 emissions, it is about people, about the values we share and what each of us is ready to do to promote them. Young people are a source of innovation and of fresh insights into problems and their possible solutions. They call for just, equitable solutions.

As the next generation prepares for changing weather and climate, young people can play an active role in monitoring, understanding and responding to the weather and climate of today and tomorrow. They have the capacity to promote climate awareness, mitigation and adaptation, but in order to unleash the youth’s full potential for addressing climate change, we need to be able to involve them in the formulation and implementation of the policies that affect them today and will concern them tomorrow.

Scientific understanding of how the atmosphere, ocean, land and water interact to generate weather and climate is improving, making it increasingly easier to generate seamless weather and climate forecasts. The WMO community has already developed tools for understanding and forecasting the weather and climate, and over the coming decades these tools will become more skillful, more widely shared and used. Information products and services based on climate predictions will strengthen our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as to pursue sustainable development — making us better prepared to face coming storms, floods and heatwaves; helping farmers to better organize planting and harvesting; and increasing the safety of ship and air navigation... Young people who choose a career in meteorology, hydrology or climate science will be able to play an increasingly important role, and thus make a vital contribution to the safety and well-being of their communities and countries.

Climate change makes us more uncertain about our future and yet, despite this uncertainty, one thing is clear: our society bears a responsibility not only to itself but also to future generations. The youth of today will live through the second half of this century and, if we do not act urgently, they will witness the severe impacts of climate change foreseen by the latest assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a result of the choices we are making in the present, young people will have a major role to play in shaping the Earth’s future. While the challenges facing the next generations are enormous, the opportunities for addressing them have never been greater.

Michel Jaraud.

 Message of Monique Barbut Executive  Secretaray, UN Convention to combat desertification for  World Meteorological Day 2014, March 23.

EVENT :  World Meteorological Day 2014 celebration in WMO Headquarter, Geneva.

Climate and Weather : Engaging Youth

•  Information about World Meteorological Day
•  WMO revamped its Youth Corner ahead of World Meteorological Day. 
•  Events during the World Meteorological Day 2014

A carrear in Meteorology