THE SUN, THE EARTH AND THE WEATHER (WORLD METEOROLOGICAL DAY)

THE SUN, THE EARTH AND THE WEATHER

(WORLD METEOROLOGICAL DAY)

 Sun reflect to the earth while the earth displays the weather condition at any given time. The theme chosen for world meteorological day reflect tropical weather, climate or water related issues. The theme of world Meteorological Day 2018 was “weather-ready, climate-smart” which looked at the growing hazards such as tropical cyclones, storm surgeo, heavy rains, heat-waves, and droughts that are threatening global populations.

          Moreso, climate is the change in weather condition for long period of time say, 35years but reverse is the case now as climate is the change in weather condition for a short period of time.  “The rise in temperature which are melting ice and heating the oceans- is driven by long-lived green house gases in at atmosphere. Carbon dioxide concentrations reached 405.5 parts per million in 2017 and continue to rise” solar energy is increasingly popular for generating electricity and heating and desalinating water.

          In the mid-1980s it was discovered that the ozone shield was being depleted well beyond natural processes as a result of chlorine and bromine atoms coming into contact with ozone and destroying ozone molecules. “The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, with the top four in the past four years”. Scientist have investigated that “two sunspot groups are emerging on the earth facing side of the sun” and as such “mixed-polarity magnetic fields can criss-cross, and explode a process known as magnetic re-connection underlying solar flares”

          The discovery of the ozone hole led to international action to phase out the most damaging chemicals such as chlorine-releasing chlorofluorocarbons (FCs), used in refrigeration and air conditioning and bromine releasing halons, used as fire-extinguishing agents. At projected rates, Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is scheduled to heal completely by the 2030s, followed by the southern hemisphere in the 2050s and Polar Regions by 2050.

          From report, the earth coldest years on record all happened over 90 years ago. From WMO “we are tracking very significant weather systems for world meteorological day, with two tropical cyclones set to make landfall over the weekend bringing dangerous conditions to parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia”. The cyclone Idai is not a natural disaster; the storm was made worse by climate by climate change, thus it has been tagged as “a major humanitarian emergency that is getting bigger by the hour”.  The Arctic is warming over twice as fast as the rest of the globe and sea ice cover is plummeting. As a result, recent, recent climate research suggests that without this ice cover more heat escapes from the oceans.

          The IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5^oC report on global warming of 1.5oC reported that the coverage global temperature for the decade 2006-2015 was 0.86^oC above the pre-industrial baseline. The average increase above the same baseline for the most recent decade 2009-2018 was about 0.93^oC and for the past five years, 2014-2018 was 1.04^oC above the pre-industrial baseline. “Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life” every extra bit of global warming matters.

BY OLADOSU ADENIKE