crop failure – Desdemona Despair

Prevalence of undernourishment (left axis) Number of undernourished (right axis), 2005-2023. After rising sharply from 2019 to 2021, the proportion of the world population facing hunger persisted at virtually the same level for three consecutive years, with the latest estimates indicating a global PoU of 9.1 percent in 2023. In terms of population, between about 713 and 757 million people (8.9 and 9.4 percent of the global population, respectively) were estimated to be undernourished in 2023. Considering the mid-range estimate (733 million), about 152 million more people may have faced hunger in 2023 compared to 2019. Graphic: FAO

October 19, 2024

Hunger numbers stubbornly high for three consecutive years as global crises deepen: UN report – The world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009 – 1 in 11 people worldwide faced hunger in 2023, 1 in 5 in Africa

30 September 2024 (World Bank) – Domestic food price inflation remains high in many low- and middle-income countries. Inflation higher than 5 percent is experienced in 77.3 percent of low-income countries (18.2 percentage points higher since the last Update on June 27, 2024), 54.3 percent of lower-middle-income countries (8.7 percentage points lower), 44% of upper-middle-income […]

Houses are submerged in flood after typhoon Yagi hit Yen Bai province, northwestern Vietnam on Sunday, 8 September 2024. Photo: Do Tuan Anh / VNA / AP

September 8, 2024

Typhoon Yagi kills at least 14 in Vietnam as officials warn of heavy rain and flooding risk – more than 3 million people without electricity in northern Vietnam – One of the most powerful typhoons to hit the region over the last decade

By Aniruddha Ghosal 8 September 2024 HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – At least 14 people have died and 176 others injured in Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi slammed the country’s north, state media said Sunday, as officials warned of heavy downpours despite its waning power. Described by Vietnamese officials as one of the most powerful typhoons to […]

The Little Sioux River floods homes in Smithland, Iowa, on 25 June 2024. Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes / The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK

July 7, 2024

Flooding across the U.S. Midwest may have wiped out up to 1 million acres of crops, new estimates show – 7 million acres accumulated more than 6 inches of rain, which caused standing water in fields

By Tyne Morgan 3 July 2024 (Farm Journal) – Portions of Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska are grappling with the aftermath of flooding, while continuing to fight a swollen river. The Mississippi River is facing flood threats, too. The high waters and flooding are suffocating fields, causing crop damage to key growing areas across the […]

Satellite view of severe flooding on the Rufiji River in Tanzania on 2 May 2024. Photo: NASA

May 28, 2024

Climate change and rapid urbanization worsened the impact of East African rains, scientists say – “We’re likely to see this kind of intensive rainfall happening this season going into the future”

By Carlos Mureithi 23 May 2024 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The impact of the calamitous rains that struck East Africa from March to May was intensified by a mix of climate change and rapid growth of urban areas, an international team of climate scientists said in a study published Friday. The findings come from World Weather Attribution, […]

Map showing April 2024 mean temperature in South Asia. The blue outline shows the region with the most extreme heat. Graphic: World Weather Attribution

May 27, 2024

Sweltering heat across Asia in 2024 was 45 times more likely because of climate change, study finds – “Heat is now among the foremost risks in terms of personal health for millions across the world as well as nations’ economic development”

By Sibi Arasu 14 May 2024 BENGALURU, India (AP) – Sizzling heat across Asia and the Middle East in late April that echoed last year’s destructive swelter was made 45 times more likely in some parts of the continent because of human-caused climate change, a study Tuesday found. Scorching temperatures were felt across large swaths of Asia, […]

Responses of 380 climate experts to the question, “How high above pre-industrial levels do you think average global temperature will rise between now and 2100? Almost 80 percent of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5°C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3°C (5.4°F). Only 6 percent thought the internationally agreed 1.5°C (2.7°F) limit would be met. Graphic: The Guardian

May 27, 2024

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target – “I could not feel greater despair over the future”

By Damian Carrington 8 May 2024 (The Guardian) – Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. Almost 80% of the […]

Mike England, who owns England Farms and Cattle Company located 29 miles east of McAllen, walks across one of the fields on his farm near Mercedes, Texas on 18 April 2024. England had to destroy 500 acres worth of sugar cane he’d grown because of the ongoing drought in the Rio Grande Valley. Credit: Photo: Ben Lowy / The Texas Tribune

April 28, 2024

South Texas farmers are in peril as the Rio Grande Valley runs dry, again – “Without water, what are we using to grow our crops? What are we able to pay back those loans with?”

By Berenice Garcia 18 April 2024 MERCEDES, TEXAS (The Texas Tribune) – Across the street from a red barn, a 40-acre field once covered by a sea of green sugar cane leaves now sits dry and thirsty. Irrigation water is dangerously elusive for the fields of the Rio Grande Valley. Mike England, who owns England […]

Reconstructed late-summer/autumn relative temperatures and precipitation in Italy. (A) Comparison between late-summer/autumn dinoflagellate cyst-based W/C ratio (black line + black points) of core GeoB 10709-5 and mean autumn Italian temperatures at 1000-m altitude (blue line). (B) Late-summer/autumn dinoflagellate cyst-based W/C ratio and relative abundance of discharge species (nutrient sensitive) reconstructions (black lines) and the occurrence of epidemics and pandemics in the Roman empire (blue blocks) as well as disease outbreaks in Roman Italy (gray lines) and major historical periods/events. Graphic: Zonneveld, et al., 2024 / Science Advances

April 28, 2024

Plagues that ravaged the Roman empire were linked to periods of cold weather – “The Roman Empire rises and falls and rises and falls. And I think the case is now overwhelmingly clear that both climate change and pandemic disease had a role in many of those episodes.”

By Sarah Kuta 30 January 2024 (Smithsonian) – More than 2,000 years ago, climate change may have played a role in deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire. Scientists have discovered a link between cold, dry periods and devastating bouts of fatal illness between 200 B.C.E. and 600 C.E. in Roman Italy, according to a […]

Annual global mean surface temperature anomalies relative to 1850–1900. Global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above the 1850–1900 average. The analysis is based on a synthesis of six global temperature datasets. 2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year instrumental record in each of the six datasets. The past nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – were the nine warmest years on record. The two previous warmest years were 2016, with an anomaly of 1.29 ± 0.12 °C, and 2020, with an anomaly of 1.27 ± 0.13 °C. Globally, every month from June to December was record warm for the respective month. September 2023 was particularly noteworthy, surpassing the previous global record for September by a wide margin (0.46 °C–0.54 °C) in all datasets. The second-highest margin by which a September record was broken in the past 60 years (the period covered by all datasets) was substantially smaller, at 0.03 °C–0.17 °C in 1983. July is typically the warmest month of the year globally, and thus July 2023 became the warmest month on record. The long-term increase in global temperature is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The shift from La Niña, which lasted from mid-2020 to early 2023, to fully developed El Niño conditions by September 2023 likely explains some of the rise in temperature from 2022 to 2023. However, some areas of unusual warming, such as the North-East Atlantic do not correspond to typical patterns of warming or cooling associated with El Niño. Other factors, which are still being investigated, may also have contributed to the exceptional warming from 2022 to 2023, which is unlikely to be due to internal variability alone. Graphic: WMO

April 28, 2024

WMO: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023 – “Sirens are blaring across all major indicators. Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.”

19 March 2024 (WMO) – A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones […]

(a) Maps of the Pacific Northwest U.S. showing the median annual flight hours between November 1st and January 31st for Historical, and near-future, mid-future, and distant-future time frames for two RCPs, (b) elevations with Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges marked, (c) Map of the continental United States with highlighted study area (grey). The historical panel of ‘a’ marks two locations in Washington State, Omak, and Richland, which are referenced in the text. Note that the elevation data is not used in any analysis and is provided solely for visual context. Graphic: Rajagopalan, et al., 2024 / Nature Scientific Reports

April 28, 2024

Western honeybee colonies at risk of collapse, WSU study finds – “They’re really the glue in our ecosystems. And you never notice the glue — until it stops working.”

By Conrad Swanson 1 April 2024 (The Seattle Times) – One of nature’s most important keystone species is working itself to death. Colonies of honeybees — crucial pollinators for a wide variety of plants and cash crops — are at risk of collapse because of climate change, a recent study by scientists at Washington State University and […]