Posted on 04/26/2024 7:18:40 PM PDT by Jonty30
One of the driest growing seasons in decades has decimated crops and left millions hungry.
A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people. The drought has been fueled in large part by the ongoing El Niño, which shifted rainfall patterns during the growing season.
Impact on Rainfall and Agriculture From late January through mid-March, parts of Southern Africa received half or less of their typical rainfall, according to researchers at the Climate Hazards Center (CHC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. February 2024 was especially dry. The map above shows the amount of rainfall during that month, as a percent of normal (from 1981-2024). The map is based on the Climate Hazards Center InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS).
Precipitation would normally be highest from December through February. But CHC researchers analyzing CHIRPS data found that February 2024 was the driest February in the 40-year data record for an area spanning much of Zambia, Zimbabwe, southeastern Angola, and northern Botswana.
The parched conditions came at a critical time when crops need ample water supply for growth and to produce grain. Insufficient rain and high temperatures resulted in crop failure in several countries. By the end of February, maize (corn) crops had withered and died on 1 million hectares in central and southern Zambia—almost half of the country’s maize-growing area.
The dry spell also affected livestock. Over 9,000 drought-related cattle deaths were reported in Zimbabwe, and over 1.4 million cattle are considered at high risk of drought conditions and death due to a lack of pasture and water.
Maybe this is God’s wrath for the blacks killing all the white farmers.
Keep going after Israel. That’ll bring good results, won’t it. God is in charge.
Israel offered them desalination technology to mitigate droughts and they were turned down. I have no sympathy for people who are offered assistance to help them survive and they flat out reject it.
It just means that somewhere else experienced precipitation at a level equal to the precipitation that was missed in southern Africa. The global level of evaportion and precipitation does not change radically while preciptation levels change locally and can vary greatly and differ greatly over time.
The whole of the Sahara Dessert in northern Africa was once lush and green.
I’m skipping reading the article, sure that my V8 Chevy is somehow to blame.
later
I remember a similar drought several years back. Zimbabwe was on the verge of starvation. Yet the Reservoirs were full but the new government had not taken advantage of it. Hard to believe this in a nation that used to produce enough food they could feed all of Africa.
Cattle dead: Sure it is drought and not the Tsetse fly? Rhodesia had a way to keep those flies out of Rhodesia. Zimbabwe, not so much.
The country was a “Cut, slash, burn” farming technology, yet could barely feed their own tribes. Then came settlement and modern farming practices and one small nation could feed all of Africa.
Now they are back to “Cut, slash, burn”, but the population is far FAR bigger than it was before settlement. No wonder they are having problems.
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