The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
WMO Press Conference 10 July 2023
/
40:30
/
MP4
/
2.5 GB
- Exterior medium shot: UN Palais with flags
- Wide shot: press conference room
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO: “The first week of July, starting from the 4th to the 7th, could be considered as the warmest period or the warmest week ever recorded.”
- Medium shot: photographer taking pictures at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO: “Daily June temperature in the North Atlantic, as you can see, is dramatically high compared to the past behavior of that area. So we record an unprecedented peak of temperature in that part of the world.”
- Wide shot: speakers and monitor behind pannel, screen with presentation, monitor in the foreground
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO: “2.6 million square kilometers of loss of sea ice compared to the ?? and almost approaching 1.2 million square kilometers below the previous record which was set in 2022. This is a really dramatic drop in the sea ice extent in the Antarctica.”
- Medium shot: attendees taking notes
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Michael Sparrow, Chief of World Climate Research Programme: “It really is completely unprecedented where this kind of reduction in sea ice that we have seen around the Antarctic. The Antarctic region is normally thought of being relatively stable, it is much colder than the Arctic. We’re used to seeing, you know, these big reductions in the sea ice in the Arctic but not in the Antarctic.”
- Medium shot: attendee and moderator
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO: “When you have a tropical cyclone, everything is affected in the shores, including fisheries, but also including inland. With heavy precipitation that could lead to casualties, displacement of populations, and so and so. So, if we say that it is a dramatic change, that also means dramatic likelihood of extreme weather and climate event.”
- Close shot: attendee in the foreground and photographer in the background
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Michael Sparrow, Chief of World Climate Research Programme: “During El Niño year you get higher temperatures in the atmosphere as well, because heat is moving from the oceans to the atmosphere. But as you correctly pointed out, we are actually at the beginning of that process, so El Niño hasn’t had as much of an effect as it is going to later in the year. So we’re seeing these high temperatures in the North Atlantic, etc., despite the fact that El Niño hasn’t really got going yet. You know, we can expect much higher temperatures from the El Niño in the latter half of the year, so around October and November time.”
- Medium shot: speakers and monitor behind podium
- Medium shot: attendees taking notes
- Close shot: cameraman
Temperatures off the charts, but more records are to come: WMO
Global sea surface temperatures reached a record high in May, June and July – and the warming El Niño weather pattern is only just getting started - experts at the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
Alarm bells have been at the UN agency in particular because of an “unprecedented peak” in sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.
“The first week of July…could be considered as the warmest period or the warmest week ever recorded,” – with a global average temperature close to 17.24 degrees Celsius on 4 and 7 July, said Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO.
The WMO expert added that daily June temperatures in the North Atlantic had been “dramatically high” compared to usual readings, while Antarctic sea ice levels reached their lowest extent for June since satellite observations began.
At a shocking 17 per cent below average, this year’s readings broke the June 2022 record by a substantial margin and represented “a really dramatic drop in the sea ice extent in the Antarctica” – some 2.6 million square kilometers of lost sea ice.
Michael Sparrow, Chief of WMO’s World Climate Research Programme, highlighted that “it really is completely unprecedented where this kind of reduction in sea ice that we have seen around the Antarctic. The Antarctic region is normally thought of being relatively stable, it is much colder than the Arctic. We’re used to seeing, these big reductions in the sea ice in the Arctic but not in the Antarctic.”
Beyond Antartica, the UN agency warned that the “marine heatwave” would also impact fisheries distribution and ocean ecosytems, with knock-on effects on the climate. It is not only the surface temperature of the water, but the whole ocean is becoming warmer and absorbing energy that will remain there for hundreds of years, explained WMO.
“When you have a tropical cyclone, everything is affected in the shores, including fisheries, but also including inland”, said Mr. Baddour. “With heavy precipitation that could lead to casualties, displacement of populations, and so on. So, if we say that it is a dramatic change, that also means dramatic likelihood of extreme weather and climate events.”
Just last week, WMO announced the onset of El Niño, characterized by a warming of the Pacific Ocean. Combined with man-made greenhouse gas effect, the weather pattern is expected to make one of the next five years the warmest on record.
The WMO officials told journalists in Geneva that “we are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further”, with impacts extending into 2024.
“During El Niño year you get higher temperatures in the atmosphere as well, because heat is moving from the oceans to the atmosphere,” said Mr. Sparrow. “We are actually at the beginning of that process, so El Niño hasn’t had as much of an effect as it is going to later in the year. So, we’re seeing these high temperatures in the North Atlantic…despite the fact that El Niño hasn’t really got going yet. So, we can expect much higher temperatures from the El Niño in the latter half of the year, so around October and November time.”
According to the WMO’s Mr. Baddour, the warmest year is expected to be after this year, when El Niño 2023-2024 is expected to pick up and the weather reach a record year in 2024 if the strength of El Niño continues to develop in line with forecasts.
-ends-
Teleprompter
Yes, Sir.
Good day everybody.
Thank you for taking part in the press conference from the World Meteorological Organisation and thank you to UN Television for hosting.
We are having this technical briefing today, not because we have a new report, but we've been getting a lot of media enquiries about the extreme temperatures that we that, that we have been seeing.
So this is, you know, in response to journalists interest, I will present the two experts from the World Meteorological Organisation.
On my right is Doctor Omar Badour who is chief of WMO Climate monitoring.
It's Doctor Badour who coordinates all the WMO State of the Climate reports and obviously most of you know him.
This press conference will be in English.
If there are questions in French, Doctor Badour is is Francophone and can obviously answer them.
Then to my far right is Doctor Michael Sparrow.
He's head of the World Climate Research Division at the World Meteorological Organisation, again, you know, an expert of of many years standing.
And Doctor Sparrow has a specific focus on what's happening in Antarctica.
And as we will see in this briefing, you know, both on land, at sea and also in Antarctica, you know, there are developments which are of great, great concern to to the scientific community and indeed to everybody.
Doctor Badour will say a few words.
He will then have just a few, I think 5 or 6 slides just to help you picture the you know the scale of the changes that are that are taking place.
So without further ado, Doctor doctor bedor.
Thank you Claire.
Good afternoon.
So today is a part of the West moral in providing climate services for the international community as a review as a media.
As you know W more monitors the climate system on daily basis using range of observing platforms in the land, in the sea and the atmosphere.
And today we are going to show you some silent events, silent information that came in last few weeks, including breaking records on temperature on daily and monthly basis as well as the breaking record of temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean as well as a breaking record of sea ice melt in the Antarctica.
So let me start first by saying that June 2023 was just over 0.5°C above the average and this is the record June and sorry, this is the record June ever recorded.
And also the sea surface temperature was very warm since the since the month of May we recorded El Nino which is now is officially set according to the latest stabbing more release in past week.
And also the North Atlantic temperature reached the record.
This is an unprecedented as we would see in the graph, we recorded more than 1.5°C above the long term average of of C surface temperature in that ocean.
The Antarctic sea ice is dramatically showing low record.
As you might be noticing the past years, the Antarctic sea ice was little bit stable until 2016 when we started looking at very low extent in 2016 and then continued throughout the years except some ups and downs in some years.
And this year also we noticed a very dramatic low extent in, in, in this month.
So can I start with some slides to show you more details and you can see that very illustrative manner.
So first slide is actually showing.
Can can I have the slides clear please?
So I would like to start by emphasising that the data that I'm I'm going to show is actually based on a range of observing systems while waiting the slides just as an entre to that slide W most set an observing system since it's inception in more than 100 years and this observing system evolved with time.
And currently we are based on several observing system on land, on air, using satellite and using marine ships voice.
And all this data actually is analysed in various ways, one by direct looking at the data itself.
And the other way is to use what we call reanalysis data which assimilate all this data into one supercomputer and applying dynamical and thermodynamical equations and then come up with an estimate of what the state of the climate is.
So next please.
So the next slide shows actually the June temperature, the mostly average June temperature are normally with respect to long term average 1991, two 1020.
This is the base.
That abnormal use to compute the variation of the climate system.
As you can see on the far right, the bar showing that June was extremely hot compared to past years.
Breaking all records next please.
So the next slide actually, I tried to explain to you why June was very warm.
Looking at the sea surface temperature, I'm looking, you have here 2 ocean, the Pacific on the right and the Atlantic on the left.
As you can see on the right, a very large area in the central Equatorial Pacific with temperature above 0.5, reaching 3°C above the average along the coast of Peru and Central America.
This is very typical pattern of El Nino.
As I said earlier, El Nino is officially declared and it has a large ramification around the world including including the increase in temperature on the left.
As you can see, this is where we have actually a very unprecedented feature in the climate pattern is in North Atlantic, very warm warmth, June on record in that ocean that has a lot of applications including on weather system, tropical cyclones and marine heat waves.
Next please.
So this is actually a more illustration on what on what happened in sea surface temperature in North Atlantic this time series.
As you can see, these plots provides you the usual usual sea surface temperature in Atlantic in the past decades in different colours.
The solid bar, solid line in black is actually what happened in June daily June temperature in the North Atlantic, as you can see is dramatically **** compared to the past behaviour of that area.
So we we, we record an unprecedented break of temperature in that part of the world.
Next, please.
So actually as we go with long term climate change, we also being noticing some dramatic changes in the various components of the climate system, including the sea ice.
It's not only it's, it's too early to say that is associated with climate change, but there is certainly some signature that scientists should discover in the coming years.
But what we can see is a dramatic change in the sea ice extent in the Antarctica as opposed to the regular CIS extent depletion in the Arctic which now we are used to.
So in the graph as you can see, 2023 CIS extent is very below the previous records including the 2022 which was also the record.
So to to put that in the context, about one million, 2.6 million square kilometre of loss of sea ice compared to the long term average and almost approaching 1.2 million square kilometre below the previous record which was set in 2022.
This is really dramatic drop in the sea ice extent in that in the Antarctica.
So the exceptional warmth of June and the start of July occurred at the onset of the En Nino, but also in the context of the long term climate change that now is proven unequivocal and due to human influence.
And next please.
So this is my last slide showing the breaking the planet record of temperature in early July.
So according to various data sets from our partners in different parts of the world, the first week of July has set a record of daily global temperature.
Currently, we assess it based on data from the European Copernicus data sets, but also from NOAA and from Japan.
We assessed that the record was broken in 4th and 7th of July with the temperature close to 17.2.
And if you compare that to the hottest day in the past, which was recorded in August 2016, as you remember, 2016 was a new year that was 16.9°C, so a difference about 0.3 above the previous record.
So this is all I can put you in the picture.
But as you know, we are going to monitor the situation, including the El Nino as well as the state of the climate before the release of the annual State of the Climate report, which is expected to be launched at the occasion of the COP 28 of the UNF Triple C.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And Doctor Sparrow, would you like to add something from your perspective?
Thank you very much, Claire and Omar.
I think when I see what when you see Omar's presentation, you do see like for example, this last slide that showed that we've very recently crossed, you know, the warmest temperature in the day is record since records have began.
I would say that's not unexpected When you look at what the scientific community have been telling us over the last 20 or 30 years, We would expect that we're going to start crossing boundaries and keep hitting the world's warmest day as we move ahead.
However, what I find a lot more concerning and unprecedented is probably a word that's overused in the in the media when it comes to climate change.
But as an oceanographer myself and somebody who did his PhD around Antarctica, when I see the kind of temperatures we're seeing in the North Atlantic at the moment, they really are way above anything that the models have kind of predicted as we've going forward.
And the sea ice extent in Antarctica, you can see a lot of other graphs from people like Zach Lave online there really is completely unprecedented with this kind of reduction in sea ice that we've seen around the Antarctica.
The Antarctic region is normally thought of being relatively stable.
It's much colder than the Arctic.
We're used to seeing, you know, these big reductions in sea ice in the in the Arctic, but not in the Antarctic.
It's around about 5 standard deviations for the mathematicians around here below what we would expect or we have seen in the past.
And this is a massive decrease and the scientific community are struggling to a certain extent to keep up.
I see a lot of things online in social media with scientists being incredibly concerned about particularly the ocean temperatures and the and the reduction in sea ice extent because we have to remember that the oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat that humans put into the atmosphere because of greenhouse gas gases.
So that's where we need to make these reductions.
But if the oceans are warming considerably, that has a knock on effect on the atmosphere, on sea ice and ice worldwide.
So let's see.
Yeah, there's a lot of concerns from the from the scientific community and a lot of catch up in the scientific community trying to understand these incredible changes we're seeing at the moment.
And it's very concerning.
With that, we'll go to questions.
First, we'll take a couple of online ones and then we'll go to the room.
So Isabel Sacco from the Spanish news agency FA.
Good morning.
Thank you very much.
Please I would like firstly if you can repeat the the numbers you gave.
You mentioned on the reduction of the the sea, the the drop of the sea ice around Antarctica.
You gave three figures, so if you can repeat them.
And secondly, Mr Sparrow, if you can develop on what are the consequence if about what we are seeing on the raise of the temperatures in the ocean and the fact that they can less absorb CO2 and what would be the consequence for the atmosphere of and for the global heating?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The graph I showed on the screen with respect to the Arctic Antarctic sea ice, there are one map which shows the extent compared to the average and you can see see along the Antarctic Circle there is a depletion of the cover of the sea ice extent.
And the graph which shows evolution of the sea ice extent since and during the annual cycle of the Arctic sea, Antarctic sea ice, there was a curve, blue curve which shows values below the long term average but also below the record broken last year in 2022.
So this is a depiction of a dramatic evolution in the Antarctic, as my colleague Dr Spahr mentioned, and scientists are going to look at that.
What are the dynamic components of this and what is it that the long term climate change component of this?
It's today too early to attribute that to any of these two components, but certainly the climate change is going to alter it.
Most of the component of the the climate system according to what the international plan of climate change has already concluded.
So it's just a matter of few months or few years to come back again and say this is actually a signature of climate change.
Thank you.
Thank you.
With regards to the effects of the warming ocean or the unprecedented warming ocean in the Pacific region, as Omas showed in his slides, we're we're used to how we study the El Nino, La Nina phenomena.
So during an El Nino year, heat moves from the ocean to the atmosphere and this is well studied.
But during an El Nino year, you also have effects on fisheries across, you know, not not just in the Pacific but across the world.
What is very unusual this year is the degree of heat we're seeing in the North Atlantic.
So you're seeing temperatures, a marine heat wave of more than five degrees C around the United Kingdom, for example, on areas around the United Kingdom.
This will have a knock on effect on ecosystems, on fisheries, etcetera, as well as you have to remember that the oceans have a much higher heat capacity.
They they hold a lot more heat with them within them than the atmosphere does.
And when the the oceans are particularly warm, it means that you will they warm the atmosphere considerably as well.
So we'll see effects on fisheries.
We will also see effects on extreme weather events as we go, as we go ahead and extreme, you know, warming of the atmosphere as well.
Imogen Fuchs from the BBC And then I'll take a question in the room.
Hi, thanks for taking my question.
I was also wondering about the the consequences of this extreme temperature rise in the Atlantic.
Like here in Switzerland, obviously we're landlocked, but they had to take loads of fish out of the rivers last year because they were going to suffocate because the rivers and lakes have become too warm.
Is that the kind of thing you fear the effect on the fish population in somewhere like like the Atlantic?
With this to continue, and I should emphasise I'm, I'm not a biologist or an ecosystem person, I'm a physical climate scientist.
But yes, certainly we there has been studies in the past when you have these marine heat waves, they certainly do affect the fisheries and the, you know, the ecosystems in the oceans around.
And as you mentioned as well, when you see unprecedented warming in the oceans and in the atmosphere, that also effects landlocked countries such as Switzerland.
Melting glaciers, you know, affects the ski season if you're, you know, in the economy of Switzerland, but also can affect the ecosystems in the lakes and the rivers as well.
Thank you.
Do you want to add something?
Doctor Baddo will just add something on that.
In addition to that, I would say also the North Atlantic is one of the key driver of extreme weather in Europe and also in the other side of the Atlantic.
Actually with warming North Atlantic, there is likelihood of increasing frequency of hurricanes and tropical cyclones.
And also if you go down South, the North Atlantic sea surface temperature actually was associated with occurrence of heavy rain or drought in the West African part of Africa.
So through that mechanism, we can see how major impact could we expect if the prediction confirms this to continue in the next few months.
On the when you have a tropical cyclone, everything is affected in the shores, including fisheries, but also including inland with heavy precipitation that could lead to casualties, displacement of population and so on.
So, so if we say that is a dramatic change, that means also dramatic likelihood of extreme weather and the climate event.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes, in, in, in the room.
Yeah.
If you could just introduce yourself.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm from China Media Group.
My question is El Nino phenomenon is normally associated with the **** temperature globally, but now we're just at the beginning of the El Nino and now we have have had a **** temperature June on record globally.
So they're thinking like in near future will suffering more and more like a **** temperature July.
Yes, No, you're exactly correct.
And that's a point I actually meant to make, that in fact, El Nino does Dr atmospheric temperatures.
We when you're doing an El Nino year, you get higher temperatures in the atmosphere as well because heat is moving from the oceans to the atmosphere.
But as you correctly pointed out, we're actually only just at the beginning of that process.
So El Nino hasn't had as much of an effect as it's going to later in the year.
So we're seeing these **** temperatures in you know the North Atlantic etcetera, despite the fact that El Nino hasn't really got going yet.
You know, we can expect much higher temperatures from the El Nino in you know the latter half of the year instead of October, November time.
Yes, also we usually the warmest year is expected to be after this year.
So the Nino year actually is between two years, 2023 and 2024, where we expect the El Nino will pick up.
And then if there is an expectation of whether we'll reach record year, that is a question likely to happen in 2024 if the strength of El Nino is going in the way that is predicted currently.
Thank you.
Robin Millward from the French news agency AFP.
Hi, if if you could say perhaps a little bit more about what we can extrapolate from these **** temperatures about the broader state of the climate.
And and secondly, we can see these very **** temperatures now, but are they, are they part of a trend which suggests that they're going to be even higher?
Can we, you know, to what extent can we see this coming, the temperatures will be even higher in the future?
Thank you.
I will start and my perhaps will provide more in depth scientific answer to your question.
WMO issued Annual community Decadal Climate Prediction and also in collaboration with UK Met Office and other organisation.
They predicted that there is 66% chance that the 20/23/2020 seven.
Be near or above 1.5°C and there is a likelihood of breaking the record in this five years period and also there is more than 90% chance that one of the years within that will actually be above 1.5 S.
This is only part of the long term trend of climate change.
In the past few years actually we have felt some kind of stagnation if the global temperature.
I would say thanks to the opposite non linear event which puts on break in the temperature globally despite we have actually despite La Nina, we have recorded several breaking temperature at at limited scale.
For example in Europe, several countries already recorded their temperature records and also we recorded several extreme events.
So if La Nina has give us a chance to not see a spike in global temperature, I think El Nino is currently a Nino gives all the criteria that the global temperature will actually is going to break that record again.
And as you might remember, the record year currently still 2016, which was one of the warmest year, one of the intensive in the new year and adding to the long term trend and you know, just give another spike to the long term trend in temperature.
Thank you.
On the line, I have Christian Erich from before we go to Christian.
We'll just go back to to Mike Sparrow.
Sorry, just very quickly to add what Omar was saying, as as I mentioned before, the, I mean, the global climate models we use to predict the climate system do a very good job of predicting what the future climate is going to do.
Having said that, the climate system is also very complicated and sometimes the, the earth, the global climate system throws up surprises.
A good example was, you know, the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice was much quicker than the global bump models at the time predicted.
And so the scientific community, you know, moved to try and understand why the rapid why there was this rapid decline in the Arctic and updated their model systems to take into this into account.
I would say that, you know, at the moment the the scientific community is in that catch up phase, trying to understand why the North Atlantic, for example, is so much warmer than the models of kind of predicting.
And also, you know, again, the other extreme example of the Antarctic sea ice extent is, is much lower than than any of the models have predicted.
So again, the scientific, the science has to catch up with with what's going on in the Earth system.
But unfortunately, you know, these surprises, the Earth system does throw in these surprises, but they tend to be not surprising that help us.
They tend to be, you know, things tend to be a little worse than we or much worse than we actually predict.
Thank you.
And so the German press Agency, Christian Erich, thank you, Claire, thank you for the briefing.
I'm trying to recap.
Is it, is it correct that El Nino in the past did not have an effect on the temperatures in the North Atlantic, that this is the first time the temperatures are rising within El Nino?
And more specific to the Antarctic, are there tipping points where you think ice is irretrievably going to be lost and are we getting near them?
Thank you.
Thank you.
So the first question, I mean whether in the past in an El Nino year we've seen higher temperatures in the North Atlantic.
That's a little bit out of my area of expertise.
I can say that during the El Nino years, certainly we see temperature changes worldwide in both in the oceans and in the atmosphere because the global ocean is interconnected.
And so if you see warming in one ocean basin such as the Pacific, you will see changes warming or cooling in, in other areas of the the ocean basins.
I think it is clear that at the moment the warming we're seeing in the North Atlantic doesn't seem to be connected to El Nino, not directly.
So we're still trying to understand why we're seeing such an extreme warming in in the North Atlantic.
And your other question about the Antarctic sea ice, Yeah, I mean, you you brought up the the aspect of tipping points.
Obviously there's a lot of work in the scientific community and the IPCC are considering a special report on tipping points, whether that's Amazon die back, whether that's for example, you know, sudden collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, for example.
So this is obviously something that's concerning the scientists.
But they're, you know, we don't have the evidence to say, oh, we're entering some kind of tipping point at the moment because, you know, this is still new and we still, we don't want to make suppositions without putting all of the evidence to hand, which may take some time.
Of course.
I've got one question from an online chat from a journalist watching the UNTV broadcast.
And the question is, how many days did Copernicus report as being the hottest on record in the past seven days?
Combined with the University of Maine data set, can we have confidence in these preliminary results?
We looked at several data sets, including from Copernicus, from NOAA, from Japan, and from others.
Currently, the consensus is that 4th of July is warmth globally.
In recent days, I have not yet get the confirmation from all the data sets that I have mentioned.
But at least looking at the Japan reanalysis data, which is also one of the WMO partner in producing the state of global climate, it looks like at least as a preliminary results, which has been assessed within WMO that 7th of July actually is more than 0.1°, sorry, 0.0 point degree above the 4th of July.
So what I can say is that the first week of July starting from 4th to 7th could be considered as the warmest.
Or the warmest week ever recorded.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any more questions either in the room or in the line of Christian Erich from the German Press Agency has has another question?
I had to take this opportunity.
There's no one else.
Thank you.
We have been talking about the ocean and the Antarctica.
Can we talk about Central Europe?
What do you expect in the next 6-8 weeks from the heat in the North Atlantic and the other phenomenons that you have been describing?
Thank you.
In Europe, we have very good infrastructure for making prediction and Germany actually is a leading nod on climate monitoring for Europe.
And the issue usually what we call climate watches, it looks like there is likelihood of having precipitation above the average in some parts of the area.
So for the moment, it's very, it's very preliminary for us here in this room to make a prediction, but we'll keep updates through this product produced by Germany whether we are heading to some extreme rainfall in Europe.
Southern Europe currently as you may have noticed it in North Africa are experiencing drought conditions plus extreme heat waves reaching 47° in in Morocco in last few weeks.
And so I think traps, I'll just extrapolate, when you have such dramatic change in the North Atlantic, so many weather patterns will also respond to either towards extreme rainfalls because of excess of measure flowing from the Atlantic to European side or through changing the weather pattern that can change actually the precipitation also in the North African continent with the perhaps exacerbating drought condition.
Thank you.
We have another question from Imogen Fuchs of the BBC.
Yeah.
Mr Snarrow, you said it was too early to say if we were a tipping point and that would need more analysis.
I'm just wondering, I mean, what is a tipping point?
What what did it look like?
What would happen?
There's not one.
I mean, there are several different potential tipping points in the climate system.
There's been quite a lot of analysis done by Joanne Roxstrom and and others.
Tim Lenton in the UK, for example, are analysing, you know, the different types of potential tipping points worldwide.
Whether that's a die back of the Amazon, whether it's a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet which could produce, you know, 3 to 4 metres of sea level in in the matter of decades, etcetera.
But the issue is that so far, I would say we don't have any strong evidence that we're hitting any of these tipping points initially.
But there's more research that needs to be done.
One of the aspects is the fact that you need to have more, you need to be able to monitor these regions in the Antarctic.
Obviously it's extremely difficult to monitor what's going in the Antarctic because it's it's remote, it's the weather is, is very extreme as we go forward.
So I think that there needs to be a lot more, you know, investment in the science and the observation system in understanding, you know, what's could potentially happen and monitoring as Omar has shown what's going on worldwide.
You know, we have good monitoring systems in Europe for example, we don't do very well in the on the African continent around in the polar regions, particularly in the Antarctic, etcetera as we as we move ahead.
So I don't think I can say much more about that because it depends on the on the speak point you're talking about.
OK, I can't see any.
Oh, yes, I can see.
One question back to the French news agency AFP.
Thank you.
Normally when weather records and and temperature records are announced, it it takes a long time before the WMO verifies that and confirms it as a record for use of all the all the cheques that need to be done.
So, so how can we know about these these temperature records so quickly and and to know them with with confidence?
Thank you.
Very good question.
Actually W Moore assess the records at the local level, for example, the warmest location in the world and this needs going back to the history to compare with previous records and that needs assessing the data and the documents that recorded this data before announcing.
That's the case.
However, what we are announcing today as June of as being the hottest day globally, it's not at local station, but globally the average of global temperature in June, which is produced as I mentioned earlier by a combination of different observation systems in the ocean, in the air, from satellite, from aircrafts, boys and the models provides us the best, best available tool to produce that global assessment on daily basis.
It's very difficult today to use only observation at station level to pronounce such record, especially when looking at gaps in the global coverage of stations.
For example, in Africa, as my colleague Dr Sparrow mentioned, there is gap of observation there in the desert as well as in some of the polar regions.
So the models produce using the best available supercomputing facilities and the best available models and based on best available knowledge produce actually very good way to assess a global temperature on daily basis.
I think with that let's I think that's, that's all the questions now.
So thank you Doctor Badour, thank you Doctor Sparrow and thank you to everybody for taking part in this the press briefing by the World Meteorological Organisation.
We, we did post a sort of news item on our website on Friday.
Please stay tuned because we probably will have more records in the in the in the coming days.
And as my colleagues have said, we're we're monitoring it.
Thank you.