Today is the day of World Meteorological Day

It commemorates the date of March 23, 1950 in which the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was formally established with the signing of the agreement of its first thirty members. Currently, this organization has 185 members. Its purpose is to provide international cooperation in meteorological services and observations, to promote the rapid exchange of meteorological information, the standardization of meteorological observations and the uniform publication of observations and statistics.

Among the latest concerns of WMO is the climate change that has foreseen, for this century to begin, United Nations experts. Depletion of natural resources, pollution, deforestation, dam construction, are revealing the possible human influence on this change. Increasingly virulent climatic phenomena like El Niño seem to confirm this. Another important area of ​​study is the forecast of natural catastrophes related to meteorology, such as tropical storms or floods.

Meteorology is fundamental for predicting droughts, floods and other phenomena that wreak havoc on mankind. The World Meteorological Day is also the ideal occasion to warn about the effects of pollution on the climate. The thinning of the ozone layer has caused a warming of the earth that could represent an increase of the temperature until of the 4.5 ° C by the year 2100, if preventive measures are not adopted. It is feared that this could lead to the melting of glaciers and polar areas causing sea levels to rise to 95 centimeters, which would threaten the very existence of some island countries with lowland and coastal plains.