Today the World Meteorological Agency @WMO held a press conference in the lead up to the COP26 summit, which addressed water, and the importance of measures to address adaptation measures. media.un.org/en/asset/k17/k…
@WMO A new report has been issued which contains some very interesting slides on changes in climate so far (last 20 years) plus what is expected to happen.
In the above slide you can see now very clearly that Sub-Saharan Africa (particularly the Sahel & East Africa) and the Middle East are expected to get substantially wetter as the climate warms, while South America is expected to get drier.
These two slides try to quantify the amount of damage that is being done already by global warming. In terms of economic damage. Bear in mind that damage in poorer countries in numeric terms is understated due to its economic costs being numerically lower.
This slide locates particular areas which are already stressed due to climate change in terms of water availability.
These two slides address the core area of business of the @WMO forecasting, data and early warning systems.
@WMO The WMO's Prof. Petteri Taalas informed the conference that COP26 is going to include announcement of significant investment in improving forecasting, data and early warning systems for the developed world - as this is a particularly important need in climate adaptation.
@WMO Finally here are WMO's recommendations from their report. [Prof. Taalas is the Secretary-General of the WMO]
Maxx Dilley, Director, Climate Services Dept of WMO emphasised the need for better information about the benefits of better forecasting on outcomes.
P.S. FWIW: I have some doubts about this part of the accepted climate prediction narrative - Reduced precipitation in the Tropical Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It seems counter-intuitive, and its not what we are currently seeing.
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The appearance by @antonioguterres at the end of the meeting is perhaps the most striking bit of all of this.
"It is my duty to defend the honour of the United Nations," he said when asked about his "right of reply" at end.
VIDEO: (Beginning 2:36mins) media.un.org/en/asset/k17/k…
"The UN has no political agenda in Ethiopia. Our agenda is just one to support the Ethiopian people, Tigrayans, Amaharas, Afaris, Somalis, that have suffered so much. We cannot see people going on dying, because of bullets, because of hunger...
"... we need to do everything to stop this conflict. We need to do everything to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed everywhere to everybody. We need to do everything for a dialogue to be established among Ethiopians to solve the problems in Ethiopia."
The @UN_Spokesperson's insubstantive remarks on Ethiopia at today's media briefing was likely indeference UNSG @antonioguterres, who has chosen to make it the focus of the UNSC centerpiece of the day, the consultation on "Peace and Security in Africa".
Estonia followed Ireland, so far the statements have been very predictable. Reiterating and reinforcing existing flawed understanding of what has been, and is happening in Ethiopia.
France speaking now, says Obasanjo is in Paris tomorrow to talk to the French. A short formulaic statement also.
The US debate over Facebook regulation is mostly focused on the impact of dangerous, unmoderated hate speech inside the U.S. @SPP_FI raises important questions about global regulation of the hate speech giant.
The rest of the developed world barely gets any attention from @Facebook let alone the developing world, where it is huge and plays a significantly greater role in political communications than it does in the west.
In NZ in 2019, a lone Australian gunman killed 51 people on a rampage through two mosques in Christchurch, where I went to school. His shooting spree was streamed live on Facebook on thousands of pages and groups. It was far and away the largest terror event ever in NZ.
The main feature we see in this animation is a cold dry air blast coming in from the east and colliding with a high pressure system located initially roughly speaking over the Bay of Biscay. The water concentration over the Med/Italy Alps suggests significant precipitation there.
This forecast shows the very complicated evolution of water transport over this five day period - JetStream 11-18km high winds carrying elevated moisture into Europe from the North Atlantic.