m - . live-r i-gmé wu lib-5m» ' e l maybe notjust as fi‘é‘" ' maybe notjust as cold as money. maybe notjust as cold as last night —— for many. monday a very decent day indeed. if you have a plan for the outdoors, i don't think the weather will get in the way. take care. goodbye.

hello, this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines: calls for students in the uk not to go back to university in case it sparks a second wave of coronavirus. we are really worried that we could see universities becoming the care home of any second wave of covid—19 in the uk. european countries are urged to offer "a place of safety" to hundreds of migrants — rescued by ships in the mediterranean — including one paid for by the street artist banksy. tight security in belarus ahead

of more expected protests. the government there is accused of cracking down on foreignjournalists. now on bbc news. sarah keith—lucas and nick millerfrom bbc weather look at the impact of covid—19 on our climate in 2020. this time on weather world, coronavirus, our climate and the changes to our atmosphere and the air that we breathe that no—one would have thought possible at the start of the year. i'm at the bbc weather centre, where i will be investigating what part weather, climate and the seasons could be playing in the spread of the disease. and i am in bbc weather‘s climate check studio, where i will be reporting on lockdowns and a sudden drop in carbon emissions. and finding out whether there could be any long—lasting impacts for our climate. also on weather world,

crisis at the poles. unprecedented heat, and why the earth's extremes are bearing the brunt of global warming. the temperature has hit 38 centigrade in the arctic circle, which is completely unprecedented. and really, it doesn't feel normal. and i will show you a quick and easy way to make your own rain gauge, so you can measure the weather where you are. welcome to weather world, and this, the bbc weather centre in london, which produces forecasts which can be seen all around the world. now, like any workplace, the virus has affected the way we work too. more people are working from home. those of us who are here are keeping socially distanced. but alina is over there, she's presenting today.

hi, alina. and sarah and i are also keeping our distance because she is in here, our climate check studio. thanks, nick. one of the main stories that we have been covering in our climate check reports is the increasing carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, one of the main drivers of global warning. but the coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns have led to a dramatic drop in carbon emissions, one that no—one would have thought possible at the start of this year. and of course, that's down to that huge reduction in travel and business. in april, india saw its c02 emissions fall for the first time in a0 years, according to the environmental website carbon brief. and the improvement in air quality there is clear in these pictures taken before and during the lockdown. inevitably, where lockdowns have eased, emissions have risen once again. in fact, in china, in may, co2 emissions surged to above pre—pandemic levels. and despite any falls in carbon emissions injune, the mauna loa observatory in hawaii

recorded the highest ever daily concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. a18 parts per million. so, how can that be when multiple sources indicate that we are living through an unrivalled drop in carbon output? well, think of our atmosphere a little bit like this bathtub, gradually filling with water. since widespread industrialisation, the taps have been on with a steady flow. the current pandemic has meant that those emission taps have been turned down a little, the bath isn't filling as quickly as before. but crucially, the carbon concentration, the water level, is still rising. and the bath isn't emptying because carbon dioxide stays in our atmosphere for up to 200 years. and those natural carbon sponges, our oceans and plants, can only absorb about 50% of what is produced. joining me now is corinne le quere, professor of climate change science and policy at the university of east anglia. corinne, how significant is this drop in carbon emissions?

the drop in carbon emissions itself is the biggest drop we've seen ever, as far as we can tell, on record, so a 17% drop in daily emissions at the peak of the pandemic. but this, even though the drop is really large, is very small in terms of how it affects climate change. because it's temporary, and climate change is affected by long—term emissions. and what do you think will be the impact of that drop in emissions on c02 levels in our atmosphere this year? in terms of total emissions, it depends a lot what happens to the rest of the year. but it could be somewhere between 4% and 7%, depending. 4% if we go quickly back to pre—covid levels, and 7% if the confinement measures linger around for the whole of the year over all of the countries around the world. so, this gives you about an idea

of the size of the drop this year. will things just go back to the pre—pandemic normal over time? there is a big risk that things go back, things in terms of emissions go back to pre—covid levels because the drop in emissions is not structural, in the sense that we still have the same cars, the same roads, the same houses, industry and everything. 50, really, nothing has changed except the behaviour. what really needs to happen to reverse this longer—term trend in carbon emissions and c02 in our atmosphere? the governments' incentives, they need to take climate action into account. so, they need to be aligned with the green economy of tomorrow. so, for example, encouraging walking and cycling in cities where that's possible. encouraging car companies to produce only electric cars as quickly as possible. and, of course, making it safe

to use public transport again as quickly as possible. because transport is what has changed the most. before the pandemic and that drop in carbon emissions, australia's devastating record bushfires were pumping out millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, in what became the country's second hottest summer. second only behind their previous summer. but then, a sudden change — with the arrival of heavy downpours and flooding, as parts of south—east australia went on to have record autumn rainfall. more extreme weather this year injapan, as seasonal rains reached unprecedented levels injuly, with some places seeing over 1,000 millimetres of rain in just one week. the same weather pattern also inundated parts of china and the korean peninsula. in may, amphan became the first

super cyclonic storm to form in the bay of bengal in more than 20 years, going on to hit east india and bangladesh. it was followed by the annual monsoon rains, which hit nepal, north—east india and bangladesh hardest, producing some of the worst flooding in a decade. in late august, an already record—setting atlantic hurricane season accelerated further, as tropical storm laura powered through the caribbean, joining marco in the gulf of mexico. no m—named storm has ever formed this early. there's been snow where it's rarely seen. here in the iraqi capital baghdad in february. all the more remarkable as it was followed in july by what's thought to be a new all—time record high in the city of 51.8 celsius. but could this place have set a new world heat record?

the usa and california's death valley, where in august, the temperature hit 54.1; celsius. if verified, that could be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on earth. as the searing heatwave continued, wildfires broke out in the west of the usa, with california seeing some of the biggest in the state's history. these fires can generate their own weather and winds, including so—called firenadoes from huge pyrocumulonimbus clouds. and as if 2020 hasn't been bad enough, locusts, huge swarms, the worst in decades, devastated crops in east africa — with a link, scientists say, to changing rainfall patterns caused by climate change. earlier on weather world, we heard how changes to the way we live, work and travel, caused by the virus have changed

the air and the atmosphere around us, most noticeably with reduced carbon emissions. but what, if any, impact could weather and climate have on the virus? well, i'm able now to talk to doctor rachel lowe, from the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine, who has done some research on the seasonal cycle of coronaviruses. rachel, good to talk to you. we were told at the start of this process that heat humidity in the summer, coronavirus will be gone. that's clearly not happened. do we know anything about how weather and climate may be impacting this coronavirus? with this particular new coronavirus, it's a new pathogen in humans. no—one has any previous immunity to the disease, so it's very much driven by the susceptibility of the underlying population. so, any role that warmer or more humid conditions may have on the virus is likely to be modest in comparison with other factors such as not only our immunity, but also government lockdowns

and any measures that have since been taken to try and slow the spread. explain to me how viruses might be impacted, though, by climate, by seasons. because, of course, we often hear that the flu season is in the colder months. why might that be? how do they operate that way? well, the mechanisms are still not fully understood, we're not sure if it is a direct impact on the virus itself and how that feeds through into infection rates, or if it'sjust through the way that we behave. during the winter months, we tend to crowd more indoors, which of course is more favourable to the spread of respiratory viruses. so, that may create concern going forward, then, into those winter months. you know, with regular flus that we know about and this coronavirus. absolutely, as we move into the northern hemisphere winter, we will have to be very aware of how cold this winter may be

and how that may impact not only this coronavirus, but also all the other pathogens that we have in winter, how this may impact asthma. also, accidents caused by cold weather. because this whole package could potentially overwhelm the emergency services, if we're not well prepared. doctor rachel lowe, thank you for talking to us on weather world. thank you. now, some of your weather watcher pictures, starting with these, from the uk's wettest february on record. three named storms hit the uk that month, causing severe flooding. in fact, february was the fifth wettest of any calendar month in records going back to 1862. but the weather made a sudden swing from one extreme to the other in spring, which was not only very dry, but also the uk's sunniest spring, shattering a record that had stood since 19118. and although summer brought the return of some rain, there were also several bursts of extreme heat, including in august, when the temperature exceeded 3a celsius

for six consecutive days. affecting your weather forecast. so much about the world we live in has changed because of coronavirus. but one constant in our climate check reports has been extreme heat, with 2020 being on course to be another one of the hottest years ever recorded. and from what we've seen so far this year, it is the earth's extremes, the poles, which have been bearing the brunt of global temperature rise. injune, in the russian town of verkhoyansk, a temperature of 38 celsius was recorded, the highest temperature ever recorded north of the arctic circle. and this wasn't an isolated event, but part of an ongoing heatwave in the region. a team of climate scientists concluded that climate change made this event about 600 times more likely. the siberian arctic experienced

exceptional heat for several months, and data from the eu's climate monitoring service copernicus suggests thatjune 2020 there has been the hottest on record. it's not unusual to see wildfires north of the arctic circle. last year was the worst on record for arctic fires. but in terms of emissions, 2020 has already topped that. the sentinel 2 satellite captured what is thought to be the most northerly fire in recent years. so—called zombie fires can reignite from deep smouldering embers in peatland, releasing not only particulate air pollution, but also more carbon in 18 months than in the past 16 years. higher temperatures near the poles also have huge implications for permafrost. think of permafrost a bit like the world's deep freezer, locking millions of tonnes of carbon and methane within frozen organic matter under the ea rth‘s surface. when permafrost thaws, that matter starts to decompose,

a little bit like frozen food would decompose if you take it out of the freezer, and it is this process that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change globally, so that what happens in the arctic doesn't stay in the arctic. another impact of those higher temperatures has been on sea ice. now, this graphic shows sea ice extent in the arctic during july, which was the lowest on satellite record for the month. notice particularly the extensive ice—free waters around the east siberian and kara seas. and mirroring what's happening in the arctic — scientists have found that at the south pole, temperatures are warming at an incredible three times faster than the global rate. and earlier this year, a temperature above 20 celsius was recorded for the first time in antarctica. temperature rise varies a lot across antarctica and the influence of climate change is less discernible than in the arctic. a vast cold ocean and strong winds tend to isolate it from any of these

warmer air intrusions and natural climate cycles here may obscure some of the effects of human—induced change. but what is clear is that the ice sheets and ice shelves are losing mass. billions of tonnes of ice has been lost from antarctica in recent decades and its future responses to a warming world could have global consequences. so, why is it that the poles are warming so much quicker than other parts of the globe? that is a question i put to professor martin siegert, the co—director of the grantham institute of climate change and environment at imperial college london. there are a number of reasons for why that might be and an obvious one to consider is the change in the amount of snow and ice in the arctic is going down. and as that happens, a very white and reflective surface,

which is the snow and ice, which bounces the sun's energy back out into space, is being replaced by a dark surface, which is the land and the ocean, which absorbs the energy from the sun. as warming continues, as the ice and the snow recedes, so we get more absorption, solar radiation than we otherwise would, which causes locally enhanced warming in those places. it occurs widespread across the arctic and in some parts of the antarctic. the arctic is a very unusual place. it's a deep ocean, surrounded by several continents. and in parts of those continents, we traditionally do get quite warm weather. and it's not uncommon for places in northern norway to hit the 20s and for the siberian arctic to get into those type of temperatures as well. but what we're seeing in the siberian arctic this summer — and actually, for quite a long time as well — is enhanced warming, at a level that we haven't really seen.

it's been in the news that the temperatures hit 28 celsius within the arctic circle, which is completely unprecedented and, really, it doesn't feel normal. the coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the aviation industry, with significantly fewer people travelling by air. this was frankfurt airport, in germany, in april. this visualisation of air traffic over the uk compares march 2019 with march this year, and it reveals a huge reduction in flights, and this has led to an unexpected impact on weather forecasting. you may not know it when you're travelling in them, but these planes, when they're flying, collect weather data. in fact, before covid, 700,000 readings of air temperature, wind speed and wind direction every day. the world meteorological 0rganisation says in europe alone, these readings fell by up to 90%. all this data feeds

into the supercomputers that churn out weather forecasts. and although other sources are available — such as satellites and weather balloons — some studies have suggested that since the pandemic began, some aspects of weather forecasts have become less accurate. we've got a thermometer and measuring humidity with this gauge... well, that's me from five years ago on weather world, at one of the many weather stations we visited over the years. the way we record weather is mostly digital, automatic, instant, but it wasn't always that way. back in 2017 on weather world, we visited armagh in northern ireland and looked at handwritten manual weather records going back all the way to the end of the 18th century. but as valuable an archive as this is, not all historic weather information is so well loved. many, like these rain records, are tucked away in filing cabinets and need rescuing, and that's exactly what happened earlier this year.

the rainfall rescue project asked for volunteers to transfer these into digital spreadsheets. it was the idea of reading university climate scientist professor ed hawkins. so, we had 66,000 pieces of paper which needed transcribing. we had images of those paper records and we built a website, we put them all online, and we asked volunteers to help us transcribe those individual observations from the paper records to digital format. we had over 16,000 volunteers step forward. and what i was expecting to take about 16 weeks actually took about 16 days. we transcribed five million weather observations in just 16 days, using the power of those volunteers. and of course, timing was such a big issue, because we know this was just at the start of the uk's lockdown and then suddenly all these people had much more time on their hands to do this. that's right, people had lots more spare time during the lockdown

and they wanted to do something useful with that time. so, this project came along at the right time. in the uk, we love talking about the weather, we love learning about the weather, and these historical documents gave people an opportunity to learn more about our weather and then about the history of the people who took these observations. tell me why it matters that these observations are available and in a format to be used today. we can see the winters are getting wetter in the uk, and having longer and more detailed records tells us more about where and why it's getting wetter across the country. another reason we want to learn more about the rainfall and spatial patterns and the details is to understand the variations in our weather. we live in a part of the world where the weather is very variable from year to year and month to month, and what we want to learn about is how wet could it be in a particular month, or how dry could it be? 0ur water companies want to know about weather, what risks

there are of extensive droughts, so if we get a series of dry winters in a row, that would cause problems for our water supply. and this project is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. ed says there are hundreds of millions of weather records out there waiting to be rescued, and that means many more weather rescuers will be needed in the future. well, i've left the climate check studio and am doing what many of you have been doing over recent months, working from home. and for me, like for lots of you, that means juggling parenting and working from home as well. so, making his weather world debut is my younger son, 0scar. hi. today we've been hearing about the importance of keeping accurate rainfall records and we're going to show you how to make your own rain gauge. you can spend lots of money on expensive weather—recording equipment, but what we're going to show you isquick, easy, cheap and a great way to get started on keeping your own weather records. a few bits of equipment we need. right, what we we need? a ruler. a marker. a marker pen.

some scissors. jelly that's not frozen yet. jelly, the most important ingredient. but make sure it's still wobbly. yes. plastic bottles. and some sellotape. so, you need to find a plastic bottle that's got nice straight sides, without too many dimples, for recording rainfall. the first thing we want to do, if you take the marker pen, 0scar, mark a circle around the top of the bottle about a quarter of the way down from the top. excellent. so, when you have your line around the top of your bottle, you take your scissors. i'll do this bit, shall i? and we cut the top of the bottle off. this is the grown—up part. yes. so, when we've done that, we have the base of our rain gauge and we have a funnel. that sits on the top. excellent. the reason we have a funnel in the top of the rain gauge is so when it rains, it doesn't evaporate, all that moisture inside gets

trapped within the rain gauge. the next thing we need, we need a flat bottom on our rain gauge, so we'll pour the jelly. great. so, when you've poured yourjelly into your rain gauge, you put that in the fridge for a couple of hours and let it set. and this is one we poured earlier. the next thing we do is attach the ruler to the rain gauge, so that's the ruler which starts at the top of the jelly. take the sellotape. .. ..and attach the ruler to the rain gauge. pop it on there. so, put the top back on. you should easily be able to put the funnel on. and there it is, your complete diy rain gauge. when it comes to where you should put this in your garden, it's quite lightweight plastic and it can get blown around quite easily, so we need a steady base. the best thing you can do is find a spot in your garden and dig a hole

about three or four inches deep, then you can put your little rain gauge down into the hole, and it should keep it nice and steady. and don't forget to record how much rainfall has fallen every single day in your own weather record. finally, weather you can eat — like this dusting of chocolate snow on a car in switzerland after a fault at a sweet factory. we'll try to cook an egg... and it may well be the hottest place on earth, but this reporter at death valley will have to try harder if he's going to be a weather chef. it's not working! well, that's it for this time on weather world, but there's more to see online. so, for the clips from our previous programmes, go to bbc.co.uk/weatherworld. but from me, goodbye. and it's goodbye from us. don't forget to look out for the bbc weather‘s monthly climate check report. but until the next weather world... goodbye!

hello, after a pretty chilly start to the day on sunday, it looks as though the rest of the day is going to offer up the prospect of some sunny spells. it will, after that chilly start, start to feel pretty cool throughout the course of the day wherever you happen to be spending it. the settled conditions are thanks to an area of high pressure which, as you see, is close by out in the atlantic. further to the east you have a little bit of influence from the low pressure over the near continent and the squeeze

in the isobars has given some gusts already today up at around a0 mph or so. the winds will gradually moderate through the course of the afternoon. one and two showers coming in to these eastern counties on a notable northern wind, but further to the west, it is going to be dry and fine for the most part, an odd light shower here or there, more across the north of scotland. the wind is from the north and that is not a warm direction, so after the cool start, we maxed out at best around 17 or 18, and if you are out on the east coast, 12 or 1a could be the order of the day. 0vernight, what cloud has developed in some areas will dissipate and that will allow the temperatures again to fall down into single figures, perhaps not as low as the night past but offers the prospect of a pretty decent start to monday. bank holiday monday of course for some, bar scotland. that higher pressure a dominant feature and it will have the effect of keeping that front out into the atlantic. if you cast your mind back to where we were 12 months ago,

i am afraid we're not going to be offering anything like the 33 degrees or so, not just for monday but indeed for the foreseeable future, as you will see in just a second. it is a decent enough start to the day, there will be some gorgeous blue skies for some, but i think as the day goes on, and the cloud develops, perhaps a shield of cloud gets into the western side of northern ireland and there are your bank holiday temperatures. scotland's are down into the mid—teens. at best in the south you are looking 18. that weather front staggers across on tuesday, weakening affair, nothing weak about that set of weather fronts which gives that spell of wet and windy weather into the middle part of the weekend as the fronts clear away, we are still left with a legacy of wind. take care. goodbye.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. calls for students in the uk not to go back to university in case it sparks a second wave of coronavirus. we are we a re really we are really worried that we could see universities becoming the care home of any second wave of coronavirus in the uk. european countries are urged to offer "a place of safety" to hundreds of migrants rescued by ships in the mediterranean, including one paid for by the street artist banksy. tight security in belarus ahead of more expected protests. the government there is accused of cracking down on foreignjournalists. the 1a—year—old who started piano lessons