“At least four people have been killed following heavy rainfall and flooding in Asturias [Spain].
“Four men, aged 62, 41, 42 and 70 have been killed by the extreme weather, which has seen large parts of the region submerged under water.
“Roads and railway tracks have collapsed following the onslaught of rainfall which began yesterday morning.”
“At least one person was killed and 11 others injured when a powerful tornado hit Turkey’s southern coastal Antalya province, according to the provincial governor…
“The powerful storm started Wednesday night, hitting Antalya’s Kumluca, Kemer and Finike districts and damaging buildings, agricultural areas and vehicles.”
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/tornado-hits-turkeys-south-coast-kills-one-injures-eleven-3472828
“While out on a hike and a mission to find mushrooms in the area of Kfar Ruppin, archaeologist Ayelet Goldberg-Keidar and her two daughters were surprised to discover a small 2,800 year-old horse-shaped clay figurine. The ancient find made its way to the surface with the help of driving rain storms, which displaced soil enough to reveal another piece of Israel’s history.”
“South Africa’s agricultural industry body AgriSA will approach banks, agribusiness and government to raise 3 billion rand ($220 million) to help farmers hit by severe drought, its executive director said on Friday…
““We have basically reached a point now where we don’t have any more fat in the system. There is no buffer any more in the agricultural sector,” AgriSA boss Omri van Zyl told reporters.”
“Adolescent girls exposed to severe drought conditions in rural Lesotho had higher rates of HIV, according to a new study…
“Adolescent girls and young women in rural areas of drought were also more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, including sex work, and were more likely to drop out of school.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-drought-lesotho-heightened-hiv-girls.html
“In this corner of the Middle East, a changing climate and debilitating dust storms have brought life to a standstill.”
“The city of Chennai [India] is headed towards a drought worse than 2016 this summer but its residents, according to authorities controlling water supply, remain in denial.
“With the water in reservoirs which the city depends on seeing a deficit of 77.37% compared to last year, experts point out that it is about time residents begin using the limited resource judiciously.”
“Bangladesh, already grappling with the Rohingya crisis, now faces a devastating migration problem
“…as hundreds of thousands face an impossible choice between battered coastlines and urban slums.”
“The death toll from floods and landslides in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province has jumped to at least 59, according to authorities, as rescuers raced to find more than two dozen others still missing…
“”I’ve never seen something this bad – this is the worst,” Syamsibar, head of South Sulawesi’s disaster mitigation agency, told AFP news agency on Friday…”
“A potentially-devastating cyclone is rapidly gaining momentum and is set to unleash lashing winds and devastating floods. The strengthening weather system is sitting over the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland and is forecast to develop throughout Friday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.”
“Bushfires have ravaged 30,000 ha of bush at Standley Chasm as Alice Springs looks set to enter its third week of a record breaking heatwave. Temperatures in Alice Springs are expected to be above 42C again on Friday for the 14th consecutive day.”
“…this year there are no rivers. With the mercury in the mid-40s, the Narran, the Namoi and the Barwon – all tributaries of the vast Murray-Darling river system – are dry, or reduced to a series of green, stagnant weir pools.
“The mighty red gums, roots exposed, are hanging on for dear life. Heritage-protected lakes and wetlands are empty, and with them have gone the breeding grounds of native birds and fish.”
“The gauge at Melbourne Airport topped 46 degrees – a new January record.
““It’s been an extraordinary summer,” Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Kevin Parkin said.
““The heatwaves we have had are almost unprecedented.””
“The water in the New Zealand region is significantly warmer than it was 30 years ago, and all indications are the warming trend will continue, said a NIWA scientist… The increased warmth isn’t only at the surface – around New Zealand the increased warmth penetrates in places to 200m deep while in the Tasman Sea it reaches down to at least 850m.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12196269
“Parts of southern Florida have now slid into a short-term severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. This is despite flooding rains across nearly every other part of the eastern half of the United States.”
https://weather.com/climate-weather/drought/news/2019-01-24
“Greg Fuzesi, an economist at JPMorgan, has estimated that the low level of the Rhine and other important German rivers shaved off 0.7 percentage points of economic growth in 2018.
“The phenomenon, caused by a year of extraordinarily warm and dry weather, was almost certainly related to human-driven climate change.”
“The climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders that were until recently reinforced by a continental-sized division of ice.
“That so-called unpaid sentry is now literally melting away, opening up shipping lanes and geo-security challenges, said delegates at the Arctic Frontiers conference, the polar circle’s biggest talking shop, who debated a series of recent escalations.”
Read the previous ‘Climate’ thread here and visit my Patreon page here.
