Our oceans are literally warming every single day, leading to greater risk of ice melts.
On Wednesday, Celeste Saulou, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, discussed the worlds warming waters during a speech at COP.
Her organisation’s State of the Climate report a few days ago stated that sea levels and ocean heat are at record highs.
She said in the report: “Hundreds of millions of people this year have been exposed to unbearable extreme heat, whilst the catastrophic ice and rock collapse and flash floods in Nepal highlighted the compound risks facing communities in fragile, warming high-mountain terrain.”
Speaking live at the COP31 conference, she built on these notions by touching on the warming oceans and the impact of this, globally.
She said: “All the world’s glaciated regions have lost ice for four years in a row. Ice and snow are part of the water we save for dry years. Those savings are running low.”
“Water stored on land has been falling and 2025 was one of the driest for the world’s rivers in 25 years. What does all this mean? We are supercharging our weather. Heatwaves, storms and rain are intensifying faster than our old baselines prepared us for. Ice and rock collapse and floods in China and Nepal showed how risky and fragile mountain areas cascade downstream and across borders. Now, a very strong EL Nino is here”
Ms Saulou was referring in part to the Nepal flash flood this year, which was found to be worsened by climate change – taking the lives of around 1,500, with 5,600 still missing.
She ended her speech with a plea to delegates to implement early warning systems, as well as broader measurement systems, in order to boost global observing power and potentially even save lives.
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