Around 360 crore people currently face inadequate access to water at least a month per year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of Global Water Resources 2021 report published on Tuesday. The figure is projected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050. The report assesses the effects of climate, environmental and societal change on the Earth's water resources. Its aim is to support the monitoring and management of global freshwater resources in an era of growing demand and limited supplies. It shows that due to the influence of climate change and a La Nina event (period cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific), the year 2021 witnessed large areas of the globe recording drier than normal conditions. Compared with the 30-year hydrological average, the area with below-average streamflow last year was approximately two times larger than the above-average area. Read: World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa erupts in Hawaii Between 2001 and 2018, the interagency mechanism United Nations Water reported that 74 percent of all natural disasters were water-related. The recent 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) has urged governments to further integrate water into adaptation efforts. It was the first time that water has been referenced in a COP outcome document in recognition of its critical importance. According to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, though the impacts of climate change are often felt through water -- such as more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers -- there is still insufficient understanding of changes in the distribution, quantity and quality of freshwater resources. Read: World population at 8 billion: What new challenges will it create? The WMO report aims to fill this knowledge gap, which would be helpful in providing universal access in the next five years to early warnings of hazards, such as floods and droughts, he said.

There’s a 40% chance that the world will get so hot in the next five years that it will temporarily push past the temperature limit the Paris climate agreement is trying to prevent, meteorologists said. A new World Meteorological Organization forecast for the next several years also predicts a 90% chance that the world will set yet another record for the hottest year by the end of 2025 and that the Atlantic will continue to brew more potentially dangerous hurricanes than it used to. For this year, the meteorologists say large parts of land in the Northern Hemisphere will be 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than recent decades and that the U.S. Southwest’s drought will continue. The 2015 Paris climate accord set a goal of keeping warming to a few tenths of a degree warmer from now. The report said there is a 40% chance that at least one of the next five years will be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times — the more stringent of two Paris goals. The world is already 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times. Read:Carbon storage offers hope for climate, cash for farmers Last year, the same group forecasted a 20% chance of it happening. The doubling of the odds is due to improvements in technology that show it has “actually warmed more than we thought already,” especially over the lightly-monitored polar regions, said Leon Hermanson, a climate scientist at the United Kingdom’s Met Center who helped on the forecast. “It’s a warning that we need to take strong action,” Hermanson said. Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the report, said he is “almost certain” the world will exceed that Paris warming threshold at least once in the next few years. But he said one or two years above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) isn’t as worrisome as when the overall trend of temperatures stays above that level. Mann said that won’t happen probably for decades and could still be prevented.

The World Meteorological Day 2021 was observed in the country as elsewhere in the world on Tuesday, focusing on the role of people to protect the ocean. The ocean drives the world’s weather and climate and anchors the global economy and food security. Climate change is hitting the ocean hard, but also increasing hazards for hundreds of millions of people, said a release of World Meteorological Organization. Also read:Ocean, climate, weather theme to mark World Met Day This year’s World Meteorological Day on 23 March is devoted to the theme “The ocean, our climate and weather.”  It highlights how observations, research and services are more critical than ever before for more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface which is simultaneously increasingly vulnerable and perilous.

Bangladesh will observe the World Meteorological Day on Tuesday with the theme "The Ocean, Our climate and Weather."

The current onset of warmer temperatures in the northern hemisphere, should not be used as a trigger to relax measures to halt the spread of coronavirus, the UN weather agency cautioned on Thursday.

A deep depression over southwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining area has intensified into the cyclonic storm "Burevi."

The International Lightning Awareness Day is being observed across the world on Sunday.

Record high temperatures reportedly measured in Antarctica will take months to verify, the U.N. weather agency said Sunday.

The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice and penguins.