St Prex, Switzerland and Lake Geneva: -10 before noon, with an icy wind, 6 February 2012
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – If you’ve been talking to friends about our Arctic weather, you should revise your description, for in recent days it’s been warmer in Svalbard, far north in the Arctic, than in Milan, Italy or Istanbul, Turkey, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. Svalbard has seen 5C in recent days while Milan can expect -10 by the end of this week.
We’re currently in a “negative Arctic Oscillation” in Europe, says the WMO, based on reports coming in from its members, national weather services around the world.
The Arctic Oscillation “is the difference in pressure between Polar areas and mid-latitude areas (where most of the population in Europe lives). At the moment there is a negative Arctic Oscillation, which favors cold conditions in Europe and relatively warmer conditions in the Arctic.”
Our glacial temperatures are not even setting new records. “The long duration of the cold period, its relatively late onset and the extent of the cold area are noteworthy but not exceptional. The continental cold air extended even over the Balkan peninsula; slight ongoing frost was recorded even in northern Greece” in the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, Svalbard but also much of North America has benefited from mild air moving over the North Atlantic northwards over Iceland up to the Arctic region, according to the WMO.
WHO headquarters in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva prides itself on its international role, but if you sense that the city’s native sons and daughters are outnumbered by foreign guests at the moment, you’re right. Runners, weather and climate specialists, world health workers have all converged on the city for three weeks of events.
Geneva Marathon has massive increase in runners
The Geneva Marathon races 14-15 May brought out 5,700 runners, a massive increase of 2,100 over the 2010 race, and they were cheered on by 47,000 spectators. This year’s Marathon for Unicef also saw a sharp increase in international participation, with runners from 191 countries. The winner of the men’s marathon was Ethiopian Hailu Begashaw, and Pascale Prevel from France won the women’s marathon. Geneva-based New Zealander Guy Simpson came in second in the men’s and Tsige Germa from Ehtiopia was third.
Weather and disaster preparedness the focus at Meteorological Congress
The World Meteorological Congress opens Monday 16 May and runs until 3 June. A key item on the agenda is a new recommendation to create a Global Framework for Climate Services. The recommendation was made last week, as part of a report and plan of action to help countries adapt to climate change, approved in Geneva during the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction meeting.
World Health Assembly opens with several contentious issues on the agenda
Current La Niña episode started in June 2010, expected to die down over next four months
Milton Road, Brisbane, Australia January 2011 - part of a collection of Brisbane flood photos on flickr by Eric Veland: www.flickr.com/photos/erikveland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva has published data confirming that recent heavy rains that led to flooding in Australia are linked to a La Niña “episode” that began in June 2010.
Areas including Australia and Indonesia that have already been affected are warned by forecasters to expect more unusually heavy rain for the next one to two months before the episode dies down.
The WMO is a United Nations organization, whose member countries’ national weather and meteorological services use it to work together.
The WMO says that “during La Niña episodes rainfall is increased across the western equatorial Pacific, including northern Australia and Indonesia during December-February and the Philippines during June-August”.
Below average sea level pressure and above average sea surface temperature in some areas, coupled with La Niña “have led to much above average rainfall in parts of Australia, Indonesia and southeast Asia. This La Niña situation is also believed to be linked to above average rainfall in southern Africa, below average rainfall in eastern equatorial Africa, and below average rainfall in central southwest Asia and southeastern South America.”
It is the opposite of El Niño, which brings unusually warm ocean surface temperatures.” Both events disrupt the large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns in the tropics and have important consequences for weather and climate around the globe. Once established, they typically last for 9 months or more,” according to the WMO.
2010 equal to 2005 and 1998, confirms global warming trend
Extreme weather events listed but no direct link made
Australian desert (photo: ©2010 Peter Brodbeck, flickr)
(video, El Niño, La Niña) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Those who thought 2010 was hotter than usual were right: it was one of the warmest years on record, sharing the top hot slot with 2005 and 1998, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) said in Geneva 20 January.
But if you were sitting in Scandinavia or the eastern US in December 2010 you’ll be right in thinking you’ve just experienced exceptional cold, with parts of Norway and Sweden having temperatures -10C below normal.
Eastern Canada and Greenland had unusually warm weather in December, however.
Higher temperatures did not affect the world evenly, but 2010 was exceptionally warm in much of Africa, southern and western Asia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, “with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record” since the start of what the WMO calls instrumental climate records.
Greenland's snow and ice suffered from unusually warm weather in Decembe 2010
“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”
The WMO is a United Nations organization that provides a place where member states’ national weather and meteorological services work together.
Arctic sea-cover at all-time low in December
Greenland and the Arctic circle
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The main greenhouse gases rose 1 percent from 2008 to 2009 and 27.5 percent from 1990 to 2009, the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. The higher levels reflect the “rising atmospheric burden of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide”, the three main gases, which, together with other gases “have reached their highest levels recorded since pre-industrial times”. They are now 158 percent higher than in 1748.
The report was published Wednesday 24 November and is the sixth since the series was begun in 2004. The material is gathered by the Gaws (Global Atmosphere Watch) programme, part of the WMO. Its appearance five days before the start of a major climate change meeting of governments in Cancun, Mexico, could spark further debate over the measurement systems and science used by governments when making decisions about climate change.
Also disquieting, the report notes: emissions of methane from Arctic permafrost and wetlands areas rose despite the global economic downturn. Their rise is a growing concern, it says, and more attention is being focused on gathering information that will allow better understanding of the phenomenon.
Nasa, the US space administration, will be sending five new measuring tools into space shortly as part of a weather and climate satellite programme, part of the growing international effort to increase and improve measurements.
video: Monitoring Greenhouse Gases, with Len Barrie, WMO research department
The WMO report details changes for the main gases:
Rapidly changing winter weather, Swiss Alps
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “And now the mountain weather forecast for the next two minutes!” Such extremely short-term weather forecasting might be a thing of the future, but scientists are gathering and studying data in Vancouver, Canada to help them reach that point. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Canada are hosting one group of experts whose specialty is not a sport, but very short term weather forecasts, called “nowcasting”, which make predictions up to six hours before an event.
A team of scientists from nine countries assembled by the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization and Environment Canada is conducting a weather research and development project called the Science and Nowcasting of Olympic Weather for Vancouver 2010, aka Snow-V10.
Nowcasting has already been used for Olympic Games, but in summer, at the Sydney 2000 Games and the Beijing 2008 Games. The prediction of winter weather in mountains is more difficult because conditions change rapidly with time and altitude.
Homeless Haitians, post-earthquake, have set up tents on a golf course (photo: ©2010 Marco Dormino/UN)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva Tuesday 9 February made an urgent plea for another kind of aid for Haiti: weather services. The organization points out that “the rainy season with flood risk is due in early April and the hurricane season begins in early June. In order to prevent potential disasters related to natural hazards, which the country is prone to, the capacity of Haiti to produce and disseminate weather information and warnings needs to be developed without delay.”
More than 90 percent of the disasters in Haiti “are linked to frequently occurring meteorological, hydrological and climate-related hazards,” says the WMO.
The country’s meteorological services have operated only partially since the 12 January earthquake, so other WMO member countries have been providing weather information.
WMO says temperatures up, also calls for drought indices
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Climate change and global warming are under discussion in chilly Copenhagen this week, and in Geneva the World Meteorological Organization is contributing its share of scientific data to heat up the debate. The WMO late Tuesday published its latest report on global temperature changes, which shows that “2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850.”
Climate Summit © Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The world climate summit opens in Copenhagen, Denmark Monday 7 December, with leaders from 192 nations attending. The goal: to find a global agreement on climate change, especially global warming.
Obama changes Copenhagen visit for greater impact
US President Barack Obama will visit the summit 18 December rather than 9 December as earlier planned, reflecting his desire to be there at what looks like a critical moment, the White House announced 5 December.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus and five in Southeast Asia are implementing early warning systems to protect against weather-related events, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Today 14 October is International Day for Disaster Reduction, and the agency is highlighting how early warning and disaster risk reduction can save many lives when extreme weather strikes. Similar projects were introduced in seven southeast European countries in 2007.
These national and regional cooperation projects are part of a concerted programme that relies on technical expertise and funding provided by the WMO, the World Bank, UNDP and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
“Natural hazards are a part of life. But natural hazards only become disasters when people’s lives and livlihoods are swept away…” (Kofi Annan, World Disaster Reduction Day, 2003)
NSW, Australia 24 September 2009 dust storm (image: Australian Weather Bureau)
Qld, Australia, borders showing, dust storm 23 September 2009 (Image: Australian Weather Bureau)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Sydney, Australia is dusting itself off after gale-force winds dumped millions of tons of dust on it from the deserts west of the city, gumming up transportation systems, delicate machinery, people’s lungs and the view. The same winds are currently depositing thin films of dust in parts of New Zealand. Sydney is preparing for a second round of dust storms. Australia is not one of the countries currently implementing a new early warning system for sandstorms, which might have helped prevent some of the chaos, according to officials at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. “Until now, Australia has not been affected in a major way by this kind of storm,” a spokesperson explained to GenevaLunch.
“The reported level of suspended particulate mass (PM10) in highly populated Sydney was around 1,000 times higher than on a clear day,” said WMO’s specialist on sandstorms, Len Barrie.
Geneva, Switzerland: third World Climate Change Conference 2009
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Small is increasingly seen as beautiful by climate experts, who say that making more information available about climate change at a local level is a key to helping the world adapt.
Leading specialists in the field, meeting at the World Climate Conference (WCC-3) which opened Monday 31 August in Geneva, are also putting the accent on developing countries, saying that while we all need more local information about climate change, these countries are in critical need of micro-solutions. These will be developed, however, only when appropriate, accurate, user-friendly weather information is available to them. Many developing countries lack even the most basic weather information, disseminated on a large scale.
Lake Geneva
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva is home this week to a key global conference on how the world can adapt to climate change – disasters such as floods and hurricanes, but also the more subtle changes that affect agriculture, tourism and daily life.
The conference agenda is wide-ranging and includes improvements to early warning systems for disasters and how to provide more precise and more localized weather forecasting, needed by developing countries as well as industries in the developed world.
The meeting is hosted by Switzerland and organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and a group of partners.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government will be pushing to strengthen Geneva’s role as the global centre for climate information when it participates in the Third World Climate Conference in Geneva 31 August to 4 September 2009. The conference will establish a system to improve the availability of climate information and predictions for government, the private sector, aid and other organizations.
Switzerland “considers climate information to be a key tool to strengthen society, particularly in developing countries, against the socio-economic consequences of climate change. Switzerland’s medium-term aim is to see the creation of the Global Framework for Climate Services and its embedding at the WMO (World Meteorological Organization). This would also serve to strengthen Geneva as a location for the coordination of future efforts in the dissemination of climate information,” Bern notes in a press release 25 June.
Global Humanitarian Forum, Kofi Annan, 23 June 2009, Geneva
Update 2 13:01 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “This conference must provide a powerful voice for the victims of climate change,” Kofi Annan said in opening remarks at the second annual Global Humanitarian Forum, Tuesday morning 23 June in Geneva. The forum is focusing on the impact on humans of climate change during the two day conference that brings together leaders from government, industry and academia.
“We have the knowledge, resources and the technology to reduce the pace of climate change,” said Annan. “What is needed is the vision, the courage” to act. He cited as an example of a good private and public partnership a weather information project recently launched in Africa by the Global Humanitarian Forum, Ericsson, World Meterological Organization and mobile phone operators. “Collecting accurate information about weather and climate across Africa will give farmers better guidance about when to plant and harvest crops as well as helping alert communities about severe storms.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More than two million poeple have died in the past 30 years from 75 natural disasters. Three-quarters of the disasters were caused by weather, says the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The mortality rate could be halved by 2019 if national and regional governments make a strong commitment to early warning systems and climate services as basic tools for reducing risks, says Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the WMO. The mortality rate he refers to is a 10-year average fatality for the period 1994-2003 for weather-, climate- and water-related natural disasters.
Lake Geneva, Alps, March winds
Changeable March, near Sierre, Valais
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Gray skies and relatively warm temperatures are the rule on the plain 28-29 March but on the peaks the snow is still good, with a solid base. Aminona, Valais, at 2,400 m, still has a base of 220m, for example, with powder. World Meteorological Day was this week, so we’ll turn the spotlight for a moment on those good people who’ve helped us plan our winter weekends during the ski season.
World Meteorological Organization in Geneva to host major conference
The impact of climate change remains a hot topic, but the relationship between climate and weather is not always well understood.
Shanghai, China, 1985 - a nation of cyclists. By 2007 there were an estimated 35 million cars. Photo © Ellen Wallace
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – China’s contribution to the “economic architecture” of a global agreement on climate change is the focus of Geneva-China Dialogue 2008, which takes place at the WMO offices in Geneva 27-28 November.
