The climate threat|Global challenges

"Insane" project will try to save the Arctic ice

The clock is ticking for Arctic sea ice. To slow the development, scientists from the University of Cambridge have taken on the painstaking task of making the ice thicker, reports the BBC.

In a first test, holes will be drilled in the sea ice and then pumped out around a thousand liters of seawater per minute over the surface. In temperatures around minus 30 degrees, the water freezes quickly and forms new layers on the already existing ice.

The vision is straightforward: The thicker the ice during the winter - the greater the probability that it will last during the spring and summer months.

The experiment has been both encouraged and questioned, with one researcher even calling it "pretty crazy."

- We actually don't know enough to decide whether this is a good or bad idea, admits researcher Shaun Fitzgerald, who is behind the project.

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WMO after the report: 2024 is likely to be even warmer

2023 was the warmest year on record, but probably not for much longer. This is according to Omar Baddour, climate director at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), who released a new climate report on Wednesday.

- There is a high probability that 2024 will once again break the record, he says at a press conference after the release of the report.

To the Financial Times, climate professor Richard Allan says that "rapid and massive emission reductions" are now required, and Professor Tina van de Flierdt at Imperial College adds that "climate change is not a distant threat".

- It is happening here now and it is already affecting lives all over the world.

The report states that temperatures have risen 1.45 degrees since pre-industrial times and that the world has never been closer to exceeding the 1.5 degree target of the Paris Agreement.

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UN report: 2023 warmest year "by a clear margin"

2023 was "by a clear margin" the warmest year ever recorded, according to a new report from the UN agency World Meteorological Organization, WMO.

According to the report, climate record after climate record was broken last year: Among other things, it was record hot in the oceans, record hot on land and the sea ice in Antarctica shrank by a record amount.

- A red warning to the world, says WMO director Celeste Saulo.

The report also shows that 2014–2023 was the warmest decade since measurements began.

But there is a glimmer of light, writes TT. According to the WMO, renewable energy types such as solar, wind and water increased by 50 percent last year, compared to the year before. According to Guterres, it is therefore still possible for the world to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.