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Topological properties of the spectrum of shallow-water waves on a rotating spherical body are established. Particular attention is paid to spectral flow, i.e. the modes whose frequencies transit between the Rossby and inertia–gravity wavebands as the zonal wavenumber is varied. Organising the modes according to the number of zeros of their meridional velocity, we conclude that the net number of modes transiting between the shallow-water wavebands on the sphere is null, in contrast to the Matsuno spectrum. This difference can be explained by a miscount of zeros under the 
$\beta$-plane approximation. We corroborate this result with the analysis of Delplace et al. (Science, vol. 358, 2017, pp. 1075–1077) by showing that the curved metric discloses a pair of degeneracy points in the Weyl symbol of the wave operator, non-existent under the 
$\beta$-plane approximation, each of them bearing a Chern number of 
$-1$.
