Wildlife

Flamingos Forced to Move

Last year, the vast Fuente de Piedra lagoon near Málaga was home to thousands of pairs of pink flamingos. The migrating birds descend annually on the saltwater wetlands to hatch their chicks, creating one of the largest colonies of the wading birds in Europe. This year however, only a few dozen adults have been spotted in the waters as a long drought has dried up the lagoon forcing the birds to settle elsewhere.

Another national park in southern Spain is also in crisis. The Donana nature reserve of marshes, streams and sand dunes supports a rich ecosystem of flora and fauna. But water over-exploitation and drought are imperilling the wildlife. Controversy has arisen over the use of the wetlands’ water sources to irrigate nearby farms. Farmers in the surrounding Huelva area have been called out for illegally using the lagoons to water their strawberry crops.

Wildlife

Fish Rescue

Spain has endured 36-consecutive months of below-average rainfall. The drought led to unusual scenes at the River Onyar yesterday. Fish had to be rescued from a drought-shrivelled river in Spain yesterday as the country bakes under abnormally high temperatures.

In the northeastern city of Girona, officials used small electric shocks to stun native fish in the River Onyar before scooping them into plastic bags. The animals were transferred to the Ter River 10 kilometres away, which has significantly higher water levels.

Environment

Drought – Panama Canal

A lack of rainfall has forced the Panama Canal to reduce shipping traffic. The water supply crisis is threatening the future of this important maritime route which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Around six per cent of all global maritime shipping passes through the canal, mostly from the US, China and Japan. For the fifth time this drought season, which lasts from January to May, the Panamanian Canal Authority (ACP) has had to limit the largest ships passing through.

Alajuela and Gatun are the two artificial lakes that supply water to the Panama Canal. It requires around 200 million litres of water to flow down a series of tiered locks into the sea in order for each ship to pass through. Rainwater is the source of these reserves that power the locks, which can be up to as much as 26 metres above sea level. The ACP says that from 21 March to 21 April, water levels in Alhajuela fell by seven metres – more than 10 per cent.

Environment

India Most Populous State

India is on its way to become the world’s most populous country, overtaking China with almost 3 million more people in the middle of this year, data released by the United Nations showed. The report estimates India’s population at 1.4286 billion against 1.4257 billion for China this year. The United States is a distant third, with an estimated population of 340 million.

Drought in Spain

Barcelona is facing water shortages as Spain experiences one of its worst droughts in decades. In the northeast of Spain, Catalonia’s 7.7 million residents are suffering the effects of 32 months of drought. Lack of rainfall is particularly bad in Barcelona where reservoirs are now running dry. The region saw similar severe water shortages between 2003 and 2008 but now periods of drought are becoming more frequent and more intense.

Environment

Drought – Tunisia

Tunisia is cutting off water supplies to citizens for seven hours a night. The extreme measure is a response to the country’s worst drought on record. The country’s agriculture ministry earlier introduced a quota system for drinking water and banned its use in agriculture until 30 September. As well as cutting off overnight water supplies, Tunisia’s agriculture ministry has banned the use of drinking water to wash cars, water green areas and clean streets and public places.

Tunisia is battling with a drought that is now in its fourth year. The Mediterranean region has experienced blistering heat in recent summers and a lack of rainfall in winter. In August 2021, Tunisia experienced record-high temperatures of over 50°C.

Environment

Drought Starvation

Nearly 130,000 people face starvation in the Horn of Africa as the region’s long-term drought is on track to become the worst on record, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. The drought has decimated crops and killed millions of livestock animals over the past year, bringing food insecurity and malnutrition to 6 million people.

Climate scientists say the weather shift creating the drought has been driven by a rare triple La Niña in the Pacific and three years of below-average temperatures in the Indian Ocean as well. It is hoped the predicted El Niño this year will end it.

Dark Winter

Residents across the eastern Great Lakes and the Canadian province of Ontario just suffered through their darkest winter in 73 years. Alaskan climatologist Brian Brettschneider made the calculation by looking at solar energy records from last December to February.

Prolonged lack of sunshine in the depth of winter has been proven to affect human health and can contribute to depression. Gloomy winters can also lead to vitamin D deficiency and a slower metabolism. Toronto went several weeks in December and January without much sunshine.

Environment

Earth’s Metallic Core

Analysis of increasingly detailed seismic data around the world have allowed scientists to confirm the existence of a huge metallic structure at the heart of Earth’s inner core.

The structure was measured by looking at seismic waves from 200 quakes with a magnitude greater than 6.0 as they bounced back and forth up to five times inside the Earth.

The transition from the outer regions of the inner core to the newly confirmed inner metallic structure is gradual rather than a sharp boundary, scientists say in the journal Nature. Temperatures at the heart of Earth’s core are similar to those on the sun’s surface, about 5,500 to 6,000 degrees Celsius.

Empty Canals in Venice

Gondolas and other boats in the Italian lagoon city of Venice have been lying on nearly dried-up canals this month due to a prolonged drought and a series of unusually low tides.

While the popular tourist destination has regularly been swamped by high astronomical tides made worse by rising sea levels, experts say ultra-low ebb tides this winter point to the need to clean and dredge some of Venice’s inner canal network. The low-water woes are being blamed on a drought fed by a strong high-pressure system, the lunar cycle and altered sea currents.

Environment

Drought Continues in the Po Valley, Italy

Northern Italy’s lakes and rivers are abnormally low after an unusually dry winter, farmers have warned. The mighty Po River is Italy’s longest waterway. Flowing from the snowy Alps to the Adriatic Sea, the Po stretches more than 650km, nourishing crops and providing vital irrigation to arable land.

But the river – and the farming communities who depend upon it – are under threat. Last summer, record-breaking droughts reduced parts of the once-gushing waterway to a sluggish trickle. An unusually dry winter has brought little relief.

Environment

Seaweed Farms

A new Australian study finds that expanding seaweed farming around the world could help feed the planet’s growing human population and livestock while also being a sustainable source of fuel. “Seaweed has great commercial and environmental potential as a nutritious food and a building block for commercial products, including animal feed, plastics, fibers, diesel and ethanol,” said researcher Scott Spillias from the University of Queensland. Writing in the journal Nature Sustainability, Spillias says millions of acres of ocean territory have already been identified around the world where at least 22 commercially viable species of seaweed could be harvested. But the report warns that care should be taken to avoid harming marine habitats.

Lake Titicaca Level Drops

Bolivian officials say a prolonged drought has caused the water levels of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake, which straddles the border of Bolivia and Peru, to plunge to historic low levels. Bolivia’s National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology forecaster Ana Luz Mendoza warned that the drop directly affects the aquatic fauna, birds and human populations settled around this lake. This includes the indigenous Uros, who have lived on human-made islands on parts of the lake for centuries.

Drought – Argentina

One of Argentina’s worst droughts in 60 years and accompanying record heat have left many rivers and lakes littered with dead fish, and its staple crops ravaged. The climate disaster has been fueled by the third consecutive year of La Niña cooling across the tropical Pacific, according to meteorologists. But a shift from La Niña to a fresh El Niño this year promises to break the drought and deadly heat during the next few months. “Precipitation will pick up (slowly), improving soil moisture reserves and moderating the intensity of heat waves,” writes the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange.

Environment

River Crisis

The flow of South America’s Paraguay River is nearing its third consecutive all-time low, threatening to cut off all river shipping from the Atlantic near Buenos Aires to Bolivia.

Three consecutive seasons of La Niña in the Pacific are blamed for ongoing low flows in the waterway.

The Paraguay is the only major river in South America that has not been dammed for hydroelectric power, meaning it can be used for shipping over long distances to provide an important trade corridor to the otherwise landlocked nations of Paraguay and Bolivia. While some urge that the river be dredged to improve flows, hydrology experts say only the return of regular and significant rainfall can resolve the problem.

Snowless Alps

As Europeans from Poland to France enjoyed sporting short-sleeved shirts around New Year’s Day, many ski slopes in the Alps were green with grass when they should normally be deep with wintertime snow. This has caused a crisis for some Alpine resort operators and threatened the World Cup skiing competition held at Switzerland’s Adelboden, which was run entirely on artificial snow.

French meteorologists say slopes above 2,200 metres have seen close to normal snowfall so far this winter, but snow is noticeably absent at lower elevations of the northern Alps and across the Pyrenees range that separates France and Spain.

Environment

Hottest in History

The summer drought and heat in China became the most severe ever recorded in the world. The nearly stationary heat dome lasted longer than any other and forced factories to shutter, threatening further supply chain disruptions.

China’s autumn harvest may have been lost, which could worsen the already acute global food crisis. “There is nothing in world climatic history that is even minimally comparative to what (happened) in China,” said climatologist Maximiliano Herrera.

Environment

Lithium Pollution

Lithium represents one way out of our global reliance on fossil fuels. But, as photographer Tom Hegen captured in South America, there is a dark side to our swiftly electrifying world. Mining this chemical can be deeply harmful to the environment. Aerial photos document the ‘Lithium Triangle’ located where the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia meet.

Drought in Europe, Spain

This summer saw Europe’s worst drought in 500 years. Record-breaking temperatures and low rainfall led to wildfires, rivers running dry and crops failing. At one point, nearly two-thirds of the EU was under some kind of drought warning.

As water levels in reservoirs sank to their lowest levels in decades, all sorts of structures started to emerge. Parts of the old village of Aceredo in northwestern Spain reemerged as drought hit the Lindoso reservoir. It was submerged three decades ago when a hydropower dam flooded the valley.

Deforestation – Madagascar

Extreme weather events are likely to continue getting worse as climate change pushed global temperatures higher. Four years of drought and deforestation caused by people cutting down trees for farming and fuel have turned the Androy region of Madagascar into a dust bowl. This year, millions in the country faced famine. Food shortages were compounded by three cyclones and one tropical storm that ravaged the country back in January.

Environment

Air Quality Improves – Europe

Air quality in Europe is improving but still poses high risks, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Thursday, as fine particles exposure led to at least 238,000 premature deaths in the 27-nation EU in 2020.

Air pollution aggravates respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, with heart disease and stroke cited as the most common causes of related early deaths. Between 2005 and 2020, the number of early deaths from exposure to fine particulate matter fell by 45% in the European Union.

Meanwhile summer heatwaves in France, Germany, Spain and the UK in 2022 led to more than 20,000 “excess” deaths. Climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution group found that such high temperatures would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.

Court Victory for Climate

A land court in Australia’s Queensland state has recommended that a new thermal coal project owned by mining magnate Clive Palmer should not go ahead on the grounds that its emissions will contribute to climate change and harm human rights.

Drought in South American Andes

Around Bolivia, many areas have declared an emergency due to the drought, which Bolivia’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Service expects will last until 2023, when the intensity of the La Nina is expected to wane. The drought has hit crops in Bolivia as well as in Argentina, Paraguay and Peru.

In the Andean regions, drought in recent years has caused falling water reservoir levels in places like Chile and led to important glaciers retreating. Drought has hit crops like wheat and soy, including this year in major grains producer Argentina.

Wildlife

Kenya Drought hits Wildlife

Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday. The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 51 buffalos, 49 Grevy’s zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months. Parts of Kenya have experienced four consecutive seasons with inadequate rain in the past two years, with dire effects for people and animals, including livestock.

Environment

One third of Sierra Nevada forest wiped out by drought and fires

The Sierra Nevada region of California covers nearly 27 million acres of forests that provide habitat for thousands of animal species and is home to dozens of species of conifers, including native redwoods (the world’s tallest trees), sequoias (the world’s widest trees), or Great Basin bristlecone pines (the world’s longest living trees).

Now, a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, has found that, from 2011 to 2020, a combination of devastating wildfires, droughts, and drought-related bark beetle infestations killed a staggering 30 percent of forests in the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Lake Tahoe and Kern County.