AP Explains: How climate change feeds Africa locust invasion
AP Explains: How climate change feeds Africa locust invasion
By CARA ANNA
1/23/20
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Locusts by the millions are nibbling their way across a large part of Africa in the worst outbreak some places have seen in 70 years. Is this another effect of a changing climate? Yes, researchers say. An unprecedented food security crisis may be the result.
... An “extremely dangerous increase” in locust swarm activity has been reported in Kenya, East Africa’s economic hub, regional authorities reported last week. One swarm measured 60 kilometers (37 miles) long by 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide in the country’s northeast, IGAD said. Kenya hasn’t seen a locust outbreak like this in 70 years, Rosanne Marchesich, emergency response leader with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said Wednesday.
HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE INVOLVED?
Heavy rains in East Africa made 2019 one of the region’s wettest years on record, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker. He blamed rapidly warming waters in the Indian Ocean off Africa’s eastern coast, which also spawned an unusual number of strong tropical cyclones off Africa last year. Heavy rainfall and warmer temperatures are favorable conditions for locust breeding and in this case the conditions have become “exceptional,” he said.
Even now rainfall continues in some parts of the vast region. The greenery that springs up keeps the locusts fuelled.
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https://apnews.com/c89d01fd28ab067ef9bf5ca017904768
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