Newsletter Issue 37 (November 2023)

Annual General Meeting scheduled on 8 December 2023

The Annual General Meeting of the Hong Kong Meteorological Society will be held on 8 December 2023 in the Centenary Building of the Hong Kong Observatory. Save our date!

The Weather of Hong Kong in October 2023 – An exceptionally cloudy and wet October

With more than usual moisture in the lower atmosphere over southern China, the mean amount of cloud in Oct 2023 was 79 percent, 21 percent above the normal of 58 percent and the second highest on record for Oct. Mainly attributing to the record-breaking rainfall associated with TC Koinu on 8 – 9 Oct, the month was also much wetter than usual with rainfall of 546.0 millimetres, more than four times of the normal figure.

World has warmest October on record

The monthly global temperature record was once again smashed in Oct, continuing an extended streak of extraordinary land and ocean surface temperatures and low sea ice, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Oct was the fifth month in a row of record-warm global temperatures. It was by far the warmest Oct on record, 0.85°C above the 1991-2020 average, and 0.40°C above the previous warmest Oct. This means that 2023 is almost certain to be the warmest year on record.

COP28@Dubai, UAE opens on 30 November 2023

From Nov 30 to Dec 12, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will host the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai. At COP21 in 2015, the world agreed to limit global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2050. To remain on target, science tells us that emissions must be halved by 2030. We only have another seven years to meet that goal. COP28 UAE is a prime opportunity to rethink, reboot, and refocus the climate agenda.

West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse May Now Be Unavoidable, Scientists Warn

The melting of West Antarctica’s ice shelves is likely to substantially accelerate in coming decades even if the world meets ambitions to limit global warming, according to a new study. Researchers warned that humans had “lost control” of the fate of thinning ice shelves – frozen ridges floating on the fringes of the main ice sheet that play a stabilising role by holding back the flow of glaciers into the ocean.

An Extreme Weather Event in 2014-2016 Sped Up Sea-Level Rise

In the two years between June 2014 and May 2016, world leaders came together and adopted the landmark Paris Agreement, and the global average sea level rose by a staggering 15 millimeters or 0.6 inches. A new study from a team of oceanographers at the French National Centre for Scientific Research has linked that sudden jump to back-to-back El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean, which appears to have sped up sea-level rise by shifting rainfall patterns and drying out the Amazon Basin.

“Nightmare Scenario”: Extreme Storms Now Breach The Worst-Case Scenario

In the wake of the destructive Hurricane Otis, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in the history of weather forecasting. Within 12 hours it went from a regular tropical storm to a “category 5” hurricane. This rare and alarming event, described by the US National Hurricane Center as a “nightmare scenario”, broke records for the fastest intensification rate over a 12-hour period in the eastern Pacific.

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