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El Niño / La Niña update / Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach new highs / New Swiss device to monitor carbon dioxide / Monitoring weather and climate from space

Latest WMO El Niño/La Niña update

The update indicates that near-neutral conditions of air-sea interactions currently prevail in the tropical Pacific and are expected to continue at least through the remainder of 2008 and early 2009. Expert consensus is that it is too early to derive reliable indicators on possible El Niño or La Niña development during March-May 2009 which is the typical time for their development. WMO will continue to carefully monitor situation over the tropical Pacific and in due course provide updates of any new developing anomalies.

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World Climate Applications and Services Programme (WCASP) and Climate Information and Prediction Services (CLIPS) Project

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach new highs

Levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases continue to increase in the atmosphere. In 2007, global concentrations of carbon dioxide again reached the highest levels ever recorded. These latest numbers, published today in the WMO 2007 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, continue the trend of rising emissions of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

Press release

Greenhouse Gas Bulletin

New Swiss device to monitor carbon dioxide

A new laser device installed on the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland will help scientists determine the source of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, on a real-time basis.

Until now climatologists tracking carbon dioxide levels in high alpine regions have had to rely on individual samples painstakingly gathered and tested in distance laboratories.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) tested the Lidar technology at the Jungfraujoch Swiss Alpine Observatory station in 2001 (photo: EPFL)

The site already hosts a pollution-monitoring station for the Swiss National Network for Monitoring Air Pollutants and contributes data to WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch.

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MeteoSwiss

Monitoring weather and climate from space

WMO partner organization, EUMETSAT, has launched a Web portal, known as Product Navigator, which provides a central point for online access to all its weather and climate data and dissemination services, as well as data from some other agencies.

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