drought – Page 12 – Desdemona Despair

Russia tree cover loss, 2001-2021. The rate of loss in in boreal forests reached unprecedented levels in 2021, increasing by 29 percent over 2020. An unprecedented fire season in Russia drove much of this increase. Russia experienced the worst fire season since record-keeping began in 2001, with more than 6.5 million hectares of tree cover loss in 2021. While fires are a natural part of boreal forest ecosystems, larger, more intense fires are worrying. Hotter, drier weather related to climate change has led to fire-prone conditions, drier peatlands and melted permafrost. Siberia’s vast peatland area — the largest in the world — stores massive amounts of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere when peat dries up. Melting permafrost also releases stored carbon and methane. These conditions may represent a new normal, impacting people living in Siberia and creating a feedback loop in which increasing fires and carbon emissions reinforce each other and lead to worsening conditions. Graphic: WRI

May 8, 2022

Vast forest losses in 2021 imperil global climate targets, report says – “We’re seeing fires burning more frequently, more intensively and more broadly than they ever would under normal conditions”

By Jake Spring 28 April 2022 SAO PAULO, April 28 (Reuters) – The world lost an area of forest the size of the U.S. state of Wyoming last year, as wildfires in Russia set all-time records and Brazilian deforestation of the Amazon remains high, a global forest monitoring project report said on Thursday. Global Forest Watch, which […]

Drought has reduced the water level in Lake Mead so much that Southern Nevada Water Authority's original water intake valve in Lake Mead -- in service since 1971 -- was visible above the water line in April 2022. The original intake is no longer in use since it cannot draw water. Photo: Southern Nevada Water Authority

May 7, 2022

Lake Mead plummets to record low, exposing original 1971 water intake valve – Dead man found in barrel at lake bottom, authorities say more bodies likely to turn up – “This is a crisis. This is unprecedented.”

By Stephanie Elam 29 April 2022 (CNN) – The U.S. West is in the grips of a climate change-fueled megadrought, and Lake Mead — the largest manmade reservoir in the country and a source of water for millions of people — has fallen to an unprecedented low. The lake’s plummeting water level has exposed one of the reservoir’s original water […]

Climate change impacts on poverty by 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Additional people living in extreme poverty as a percent of the total population, by country (left); additional people living in extreme poverty, by country (right). Climate change could drive millions of people in LAC back into extreme poverty. Graphic: World Bank

May 7, 2022

Climate disasters in Latin America threaten to drive six million into poverty in next decade

By David Callaway 26 April 2022 MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Callaway Climate Insights) – As Latin America prepares for another disastrous hurricane season, two major intergovernmental reports are pointing to the need for urgency in reversing years of climate-related disasters that have driven more people into poverty. A report by the World Bank this month said over the past […]

California snow water content for 4 April 2022, percent of April 1 average. Graphic: California Department of Water Resources

May 5, 2022

California snowpack in “grim” condition, water resources say – “We’ve had the driest start to the year on record”

By Phil Mayer 29 April 2022 (KRON) – While there were some April showers in California this year, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said Friday that what’s left of the Northern Sierra snowpack is “grim.” “The Department of Water Resources’ Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit conducted the final snow survey of the […]

U.S. soybean oil futures, U.N. FAO edible oils index, and Malaysia palm oil futures, 2002-2022. Global edible oil prices have soared to all-time highs in 2022 on supply shocks. Graphic: Refinitiv / Reuters

April 23, 2022

Indonesia bans palm oil exports as global food inflation spikes – “Sky would be the limit for edible oil prices now”

By Fransiska Nangoy 22 April 2022 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, announced plans to ban exports of the most widely used vegetable oil on Friday, in a shock move that could further inflame surging global food inflation. The halting of shipments of the cooking oil and its raw material, widely […]

The bodies of cattle killed by devastating drought in Ethiopia, South Omo, 23 Feburary 2022. In the vast lowland part of the country in South Omo, communities have suffered high death rates among their cattle as a result of the severe drought. Photo: Michael Tewelde / WFP

April 21, 2022

Drought pushes up to 20 million people across horn of Africa closer to catastrophe each day – WFP has warned since 2021 that this drought will be disastrous without immediate action

NAIROBI, 19 April 2022 (WFP) – Desperately needed rains across the Horn of Africa have so far failed to materialise, almost a month into the current rainy season, and if these conditions continue, along with stagnant and even decreasing humanitarian aid, the number of hungry people due to drought could spiral from the currently estimated […]

Concurrent shocks affecting the food security of households in the Horn of Africa in 2022. Graphic: FAO

April 17, 2022

New data show how drought in the Horn of Africa is driving up acute hunger – “The scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling”

ROME, 12 April 2022 (FAO) – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today warned that dire new hunger data out of Somalia sheds additional light on extended drought’s crippling impacts on the Horn of Africa region and underscores the criticality of large-scale agricultural aid to keep rural families self-reliant, fed, and […]

A houseboat rests in a cove at Lake Powell near Page, Arizona on 30 July 2021. In the summer of 2021, the water levels hit a historic low amid a climate change-fueled megadrought engulfing the U.S. West. Severe drought across the West drained reservoirs in 2021, slashing hydropower production and further stressing the region’s power grids. And as extreme weather becomes more common with climate change, grid operators are adapting to swings in hydropower generation. Photo: Rick Bowmer / AP Photo

April 6, 2022

Lake Powell hits historic low, raising hydropower concerns – “We clearly weren’t sufficiently prepared for the need to move this quickly”

By Sam Metz and Felicia Fonseca 16 March 2022 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A massive reservoir known as a boating mecca dipped below a critical threshold on Tuesday raising new concerns about a source of power that millions of people in the U.S. West rely on for electricity. Lake Powell’s fall to below 3,525 […]

Lake Mead end of month elevations, projections from the February and March 2022 24-month study inflow scenarios. Water year 2022 got off to a promising start in the Colorado River Basin with a wetter-than-normal October, but it was followed by the second-driest November on record and resulted in a loss of 1.5 million acre-feet of inflow for Lake Powell compared to the previous month’s projections. December projections showed the reservoir dropping below the target elevation of 3,525 feet as early as February 2022. As defined in the Drought Response Operations Agreement, the target elevation provides a sufficient buffer to allow for response actions to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet, the lowest elevation that Glen Canyon Dam can generate hydropower. Graphic: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

April 4, 2022

Empty canals, dead cotton fields: Arizona farmers are getting slammed by 2022 water cuts in the U.S. West – “We’re not making one dime off this farm right now”

By Emma Newburger 3 April 2022 CASA GRANDE, Arizona (CNBC) – On the drought-stricken land where Pinal County farmers have irrigated crops for thousands of years, Nancy Caywood stopped her pickup truck along an empty canal and pointed to a field of dead alfalfa. “It’s heart wrenching,” said Caywood, a third-generation farmer who manages 247 […]

Afghan children play in the mud at an unofficial camp for internally displaced people in Herat, Afghanistan, May 2021. Photo: Charlie Faulkner

April 4, 2022

Devastated by worst drought in decades and economic turmoil, many in Afghanistan near starvation – “It is the speed, scale and source of the crisis that is so extreme”

By Holly Rosenkrantz 3 April 2022 (USA TODAY) – Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass. But the situation in the country now is unprecedented. Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic […]