The United Nations has issued the latest warning that global warming is having an increasingly serious impact on mankind. With the approach of irreversible climate disaster, the global impact of climate change is entering an unknown area of destruction, countries have failed to effectively deal with climate change, and the world is moving in the wrong direction.

The report, entitled “Uniting in Science”, was compiled by the World Meteorological Organization and coordinated by many institutions, bringing together the latest research, impacts and countermeasures of climate change. According to the report, the number of deaths caused by climate disasters has decreased in recent years, but its economic cost has risen sharply. In the past five years, climate-related disasters have increased fivefold, resulting in an average of 115 deaths and a daily loss of $202 million, and the consequences will be further aggravated.

The report quoted data collected by many UN agencies and partners as saying that the past seven years (2015 -2021) were the hottest period on record. The global average temperature from 2018 to 2022 (as of June 2022) is estimated to be 1.17 degrees Celsius (0.13 degrees Celsius) higher than the average from 1850 to 1900.

After a temporary decline during the blockade of the COVID-19 epidemic, fossil fuel emissions have now returned to the pre-epidemic level, and the concentration of greenhouse gases has also risen to a record high. Preliminary data show that the global carbon dioxide emissions from January to May 2022 were 1.2% higher than the same period in 2019, which was mainly due to the increase in emissions from the United States, India and most European countries.

As the concentration of greenhouse gases continues to hit a new high, and the global efforts to slow down climate change are insufficient, it is difficult to achieve the goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the Paris Agreement. From 2022 to 2026, the global average temperature is expected to be 1.1-1.7 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial level. In the next five years, the probability of global temperature rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius is 48%. In the next five years, there is a 93% chance that the world will experience a record high temperature.

At last year’s United Nations Global Climate Summit, nearly 200 participating countries made commitments on methane gas pollution, deforestation and coal financing. However, according to the latest United Nations report, the scale of emission reduction commitments in 2030 must be quadrupled to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it needs to be increased sevenfold.

In a video released at the same time as the report, UN Secretary-General Guterres quoted Pakistani floods, heat waves in Europe, droughts in China, the Horn of Africa and the United States, saying that the scale of these disasters is not a natural phenomenon, but the price of human addiction to fossil fuels. “This year’s report shows that the impact of climate is developing towards unknown areas of destruction … However, even if more and more indicators have a rapidly deteriorating impact, our dependence on fossil fuels is still increasing year by year.

According to a study published in Science magazine last week, if the goal of controlling global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius cannot be achieved, when most climate changes become irreversible, a series of “tipping points” may be triggered, such as the disappearance of ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica and the death of coral reefs.

The United Nations report on Tuesday also said that about 90% of the accumulated heat in the earth system is stored in the ocean, and the ocean heat content from 2018 to 2022 is higher than that in all five years in history, and the ocean warming rate has shown a particularly strong growth in the past 20 years. This report points out the importance of early warning system. More than ever, the international community needs to take greater action, not only to reduce emissions, but also to adapt to climate change. Early warning system is an effective adaptive measure, which can save lives, reduce losses and damages, and is cost-effective.

At present, 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people live in an environment that is extremely vulnerable to climate change. However, less than half of countries have multiple disaster early warning systems, especially in Africa, least developed countries and small island States.

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization put forward a plan to ensure that everyone can get early warning services in the next five years, and it is expected that a specific action plan will be launched at COP27 in October. The organization said in a press release that the primary task of the international community is to ensure that everyone on the planet is protected by multiple disaster early warning systems in the next five years, which requires cooperation between different participants and innovative financing solutions.

Early warning system has been recognized as an effective and feasible climate adaptation measure, which can save lives and provide a ten-fold return on investment. The initiative was first put forward by UN Secretary-General Guterres, who said on World Meteorological Day on March 23rd this year that “early warning can save lives”.

James Webb Space Telescope turned its attention from the depths of the universe back to the solar system, and captured the details of Neptune and its rings with the latest technology. This is the clearest related image in more than 30 years.

On September 21st, NASA released these images, which clearly showed the beautiful rings of Neptune. It only took Webber a few minutes to get a close-up of Neptune, and it took another 20 minutes to get a wider view. From this perspective, the image also shows countless cosmic galaxies in the background.

Neptune from a broader perspective photographed by Weber
Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun. It is called the “ice giant” together with Uranus, and its interior is composed of chemicals denser than the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Its distance from the sun is about 30 times that of the earth, and it orbits a distant and dark area of the solar system. According to NASA, Neptune is so far away from the sun that its brightness at noon is like a dim dusk on the earth.

In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 probe flew over Neptune on its way out of the solar system, and no spacecraft has visited it since. This glimpse 30 years ago aroused the interest of astronomers, who were eager to know more about this ice giant.

The latest photos of Neptune taken by Weber.
In the images taken before the Hubble Space Telescope, Neptune looks dark blue because there is methane in its atmosphere. However, the near-infrared wavelength captured by Weber’s main imager, NIRCam, shows that the planet is gray with Leng Yun flow on its surface.

The methane ice cloud on Neptune’s surface rises high above it for several days. Patrick Irwin, a planetary physicist at Oxford University, said that so far, no one really knows what these things are. They look a bit like cirrus clouds on the earth. Future observations of the Webb telescope can reveal how they were formed and their composition.

Mark McCaughrean, a senior scientific adviser to the European Space Agency, said that Weber’s unprecedented infrared imaging capability provided a new perspective for observing Neptune’s atmosphere. The Weber telescope removed all glare and background, which provided support for scientists to start combing Neptune’s atmospheric composition. “This was unimaginable five years ago.”

This latest photo taken by Weber is also the first time to see Neptune’s ring from an infrared perspective. Heidi Hamel, an interdisciplinary scientist of the Weber Project, said in a statement: “It has been three years since we last saw Neptune rings, and this is the first time we have seen them in infrared light.” .

Klaus Pontoppidan, a Weber project scientist at the Institute of Space Telescope Science, said that the most prominent thing in Weber’s field of vision is Neptune ring, which can be seen to surround Neptune in a slightly inclined way due to its orientation with the Earth. The new image can reveal the size and composition of the halo, which may be ice and other debris. Weber will enable astronomers to measure the reflectivity of the ring, providing an unparalleled opportunity to learn more about it.

In addition, the latest photos make astronomers pay more attention to Neptune’s North Pole. NASA said in a statement that the latest photos show an “interesting brightness” near the top of Neptune. Because Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun, it takes 164 years to go around the sun, and it is tilted away from the earth. So far, astronomers have not had a chance to observe its North Pole carefully.

Neptune and seven of its 14 known satellites, including Triton (upper left).
In addition, Weber discovered seven of Neptune’s 14 known satellites. In an enlarged photo, Neptune has a faintly visible and very bright spiky star on the upper left. It is one of the largest moons of Neptune, brighter than Neptune itself. Scientists suspect that it was captured by Neptune’s gravity in the early solar system.

Weber’s future observations should reveal the surface composition of Triton and may show the changes of geological activities. Weber project scientist Hamel said that Triton is a geologically active world. When Voyager 2 flew 30 years ago, it witnessed the eruption of a low-temperature volcano. So with the passage of time, its surface chemical composition may have changed.

Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency pointed out that the significance of observing ice giants like Neptune is to ensure that we have the ability to pay attention to other ice giants. Astronomers are looking for other planets similar to the earth in the universe. In the process, they found that ice giants such as Neptune and Uranus are the most common in the Milky Way.

Weber is the most powerful space telescope ever. It was first launched in December last year and has been releasing photos of deep space since July this year, providing a lot of unprecedented data. According to Weber’s observation of Neptune and Triton, it is expected to be carried out next year, which scientists hope will herald a new era of discovery.