Crops have failed in several countries, with 27m people at risk of hunger according to World Food Programme
Emmanuel Himoonga paced his dry field, picking up stalks of maize that had been bleached almost to bone white.
The 61-year-old chief of Shakumbila, a mainly agricultural community of about 7,000 people roughly 70 miles west of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, had seen droughts before.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Meteorologists say climate change and the amount of heat being added to the oceans make predictions based on the past less reliable
The Bureau of Meteorology is shifting the way it communicates about climate phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña, because global heating is making predictions based on the past less reliable.
This week the bureau kept the country on a “La Niña watch” and said if the climate system in the Pacific does develop, it’s likely to be short-lived and weak.
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Continue reading...Weather bureau says there is now a 50/50 chance of La Niña forming this year
Australia has been placed on La Niña watch by the Bureau of Meteorology with early signs the climate pattern linked to cooler and wetter conditions across most of the country could form later this year.
The bureau said there was now a 50/50 chance of La Niña forming this year with sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific steadily cooling since December.
Continue reading...Total deaths reach 76 and more than 130,000 displaced as weeks of flooding also affects east African neighbours
Seventy-six people in Kenya have died because of flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the government has said, warning residents “to brace for even heavier rainfall”.
Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than usual rain in recent weeks, compounded by the El Niño weather system.
Continue reading...World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause
Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death trap” conditions during recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years such as this one had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.
Continue reading...Deaths from record temperatures in Mali reportedly led to full morgues turning away bodies this month
The deadly protracted heatwave that filled hospitals and mortuaries in the Sahel region of Africa earlier this month would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption, a new analysis has revealed.
Mali registered the hottest day in its history on 3 April as temperatures hit 48.5C in the south-western city of Kayes. Intense heat continued across a wide area of the country for more than five days and nights, giving vulnerable people no time for recovery.
Continue reading...Seven months after an El Niño associated with hotter and drier weather got under way, conditions have returned to neutral
The Bureau of Meteorology has declared the El Niño weather event of 2023-24 to be over, with odds increasing that its cooler counterpart, the La Niña, will return by the coming spring.
Conditions in the central equatorial Pacific have now returned to neutral conditions, about seven months after the El Niño had got under way, the bureau said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Heavy rain forecast in Saudi Arabia and UAE as France and Spain cool down after weekend of high temperatures
Intense thunderstorms are forecast across parts of the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday, bringing very high rainfall to the region and a significant flooding risk in parts.
Low pressure over the Arabian peninsula will deepen on Monday while a flow of moist tropical air moves into the region, significantly enhancing the production of showers as a result.
Continue reading...Emmerson Mnangagwa says country needs $2bn of aid as severe dry spell caused by El Niño afflicts southern Africa
Zimbabwe has declared a national disaster over a drought caused by the climate event known as El Niño and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the country needs $2bn in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry.
The severe dry spell is wreaking havoc across southern Africa.
Continue reading...Coastal areas facing ‘enormous and urgent climate crisis’ as event supercharges human-caused global heating, scientists say
The current climate event known as El Niño is likely to supercharge global heating and deliver record-breaking temperatures from the Amazon to Alaska in 2024, analysis has found.
Coastal areas of India by the Bay of Bengal and by the South China Sea, as well as the Philippines and the Caribbean, are also likely to experience unprecedented heat in the period to June, the scientists said, after which El Niño may weaken.
Continue reading...First-ever hurricane-force wind warning along coast, with millions of people under flood watches and power out for close to a million
An enormous atmospheric river-fueled storm unleashed rain and furious winds across California on Sunday, leaving destruction and hazards in its wake.
Howling winds tore down power lines and trees, and scattered debris in communities across the state, prompting officials to issue the first-ever hurricane-force wind warning along the coast. By late afternoon, streets in both northern and southern regions of California were left submerged, with far more rain on the way.
Continue reading...Cyclone Belal is expected to remain a strong storm through the coming week
Active weather is expected to affect northern Australia and parts of the Mascarene Islands in the south Indian Ocean this week, with the monsoon trough a triggering factor in both cases.
The monsoon trough is an area of the Intertropical Convergence Zone that interacts with the larger scale monsoon circulation. This trough is marked by an area of relative minima in sea level pressure, as well as a local maximum of vorticity (a measure of the spin of the atmosphere).
Continue reading...James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s
The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.
James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.
Continue reading...‘The dry weather probably panicked a lot of people who flooded the markets with cattle, but now things are changing, says one breeder
Between a tangle of steel pens at the Silverdale sale yards an hour west of Brisbane, farmers and prospective buyers listened to the drone of an auctioneer as cattle bidding got under way.
Rebounding cattle and sheep prices have them feeling more optimistic after heavy rain across eastern Australian replenished parched pastures and eased fears of a severe drought driven by El Niño.
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Continue reading...Forest fires leave Manaus with second worst air quality in the world, while low river levels cut off communities
A withering drought has turned the Amazonian capital of Manaus into a climate dystopia with the second worst air quality in the world and rivers at the lowest levels in 121 years.
The city of 1 million people, which is surrounded by a forest of trees, normally basks under blue skies. Tourists take pleasure boats to the nearby meeting of the Negro and Amazon (known locally as the Solimões) rivers, where dolphins can often be seen enjoying what are usually the most abundant freshwater resources in the world.
Continue reading...Rural Aid charity says requests for mental health support, financial counselling and emergency livestock feed doubles in a month
Demand for emergency rural aid is rising as farmers face a dry and unproductive summer ahead.
The latest Australian agricultural seasonal outlook forecasts farm incomes will plummet by 41% on average this financial year.
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Continue reading...Senator and home affairs spokesperson calls Pezzullo’s position ‘completely untenable’. Follow the day’s news live
Residents rescued from suspicious apartment block blaze in Melbourne
Residents trapped inside a burning Melbourne care facility have been safely rescued, with the blaze regarded as suspicious, AAP reports.
Continue reading...After experiencing a record-breaking number of ‘extremely hot’ days in summer, the unusually high temperatures are due to continue
Matsutake mushrooms and persimmons have appeared on supermarket shelves, along with seasonal beers and sakes. In Tokyo neighbourhoods, residents carry portable shrines through the streets at festivals to mark the end of summer, and children get ready for school sports days.
Autumn, though, has yet to make an appearance in Japan. Instead, experts are warning that the crisp, sunny days that usually offer relief at the end of a sweltering summer are still some way off, with one describing the weather as “abnormal”.
Continue reading...Australian Energy Market Operator says ‘imminent and urgent investment’ in energy is needed
Eastern Australia requires “imminent and urgent investment” in energy to bolster the reliability of the electricity grid, the Australian Energy Market Operator says, as it warns of the risk of outages in Victoria and South Australia this summer.
The challenges are detailed in an Aemo report, released on Thursday, which says the grid may come under strain even with 3.4 gigawatts of new generation and storage capacity added to the national electricity market compared with last summer.
Continue reading...Global temperature was warmest on record last month as Britain faced cloudy and wet conditions
At the start of this week Nasa announced that July 2023 had the highest global temperature recorded for that month since 1880. It was also the warmest month on record.
Readers in the UK may find this hard to believe, given the wet and generally miserable conditions in the country that month. Britain received 19% less sunshine and 170% more rain compared with the 1991-2020 average.
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