Global sea surface temperatures were at record high for the time of the year in May and June, according to WMO, which warned that the warming of the world's oceans was spreading fast beyond their surface.

Ice shelves, permanent floating sheets of frozen freshwater attached to land, take thousands of years to form and act like buttresses holding back glaciers that would otherwise easily slide off into the ocean, causing seas to rise.

The pandemic arrived in December, making it the last of the world’s continents to report an outbreak of Covid-19.