COP31: Record ocean heat, sea levels and four years of ice loss

Why does the loss of ice matter?

Her sharpest warning concerned the world's glaciated regions, meaning areas containing glaciers. She said:

“All the world's glaciated regions have lost ice for four years in a row. Ice and snow are part of the water we save for dry years. Those savings are running low.”

Like a reservoir, ice and snow store water for dry periods. With those reserves running low, communities have less water set aside for seasons when rain and river flow do not replenish supplies.

Water stored on land has also been falling. Saulou said 2025 was one of the driest years for the world's rivers in 25 years.

How are weather hazards changing?

She argued that these changes were supercharging the weather. Heatwaves, storms and rain were intensifying faster than old baselines—historical reference ranges used for preparation—had anticipated.

Her examples included ice and rock collapse and floods in China and Nepal. Those events showed how hazards in fragile mountain areas can cascade downstream and across borders.

She also said a very strong El Niño was underway. El Niño is a recurring warm phase of tropical Pacific climate variability; the excerpt did not specify how it would alter particular storms.

What did the Nepal flood reveal?

This year's Nepal flash flood, a flood that arrives suddenly, killed around 1,500 people and left 5,600 missing. The account described the disaster as worsened by climate change.

Because the available account gave no numerical share for climate change's contribution, the causal statement should not be read as a complete accounting of every factor behind the flood. The figures instead show the scale of the reported toll.

The material provided broad global indicators rather than a local risk map. It did not provide uncertainty ranges, a regional breakdown or a timetable for how the trends may develop. Its clearest evidence was therefore the set of observed records, the four-year ice-loss sequence and the reported human toll in Nepal.

What did Saulou ask delegates to do?

Saulou ended by urging delegates to implement early warning systems and broader measurement systems. She said both would strengthen global observing power—the capacity to monitor the planet—and could potentially save lives.

The speech did not specify deployment dates or funding, so it set out a policy direction rather than an implementation schedule. Her closing message was practical: measure the planet more closely, warn communities sooner and act before today's extremes become tomorrow's losses.