1. 1300 deaths at the Haj in Saudi Arabia.
www.nbcnews.com/…
Climate change could make the risk even greater. A 2019 study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even if the world succeeds in mitigating the worst effects of climate change, the Hajj would be held in temperatures exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052, and from 2079 to 2086.
Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the Hajj comes around 11 days earlier each year. By 2029, the Hajj will occur in April, and for several years after that it will fall in the winter, when temperatures are milder.
During this year’s Hajj period, daily high temperatures ranged between 117 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit (46 to 49 degrees Celsius) in Mecca and sacred sites in and around the city, according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology. Some people fainted while trying to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil.
Of course the Saudis blamed unauthorized pilgrims, who couldn’t retreat to air conditioned hotels, but slept in tents.
2. Coral Bleaching
NOAA confirmed the 4th global bleaching coral bleaching event this spring www.noaa.gov/….Coral bleaching is much more complicated than bleaching kills corals, but it is hard on them and can kill them, or it can take years to recover. Like everything in our natural world Coral has a lot of other stresses besides climate change and this isn’t good. Around 500 million people depend on Coral Reefs for their livelyhood and around 30 million people are completely dependent.
www.washingtonpost.com/…
It’s a big deal among the minimizing community that some of the Maldive Islands have not shrunk as sea level rises. As coral grows and it can be broken up and deposited on some of these islands,so some have grown, and like barrier islands they want to move around. Still if the coral are bleaching constantly can this continue. The Washington Post didn’t know.
https://skepticalscience.com/fourth-mass-coral-bleaching-recover.html
3. Droughts.
I looked up the NOAA world drought report for May, the latest one. Here are some of the highlights
A significant portion of the world's agricultural lands was still suffering from low soil moisture and groundwater levels — especially in the Americas, Africa, eastern Europe, and parts of Asia — and satellite observations showed stressed vegetation on all continents. The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor indicated that agriculture was most threatened in parts of Central and South America, Africa, western Europe, southwest Russia, southern Australia, and southeast Asia, as well as parts of the North American Plains/Prairies. The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNet) revealed significant food insecurity continuing in parts of Central and South America, Southwest Asia, and much of Africa.
The World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) "State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023" report noted that hunger and disease are rising in Latin America after a year of record heat, floods and drought. The study found that the region has probably suffered tens of thousands of climate-related deaths in 2023, at least 21bn USD (17bn Euro) of economic damage and "the greatest calorific loss" of any region. The Associated Press reported that the United Nations' World Food Programme warned that southern Africa was the "epicenter of the crisis" after a cycle of floods and drought has battered the region over the last three years. Three countries — Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia — are the worst affected and have seen between 40-80% of their staple corn crops wiped out by drought this season, leaving millions impacted. EUNews reported that the European Environment Agency's latest report ("Responding to climate change impacts on human health in Europe: focus on floods, droughts and water quality") sounds the alarm that climate change "will further increase people's exposure to extreme weather events, with serious health consequences."
According to media reports (The Hindu), people in southwest India, who are distressed over drought and desperate to keep their areca plantations alive in parts of Ajjampura taluk in Chikkamagaluru district, have resorted to a rather macabre superstitious practice of exhuming the bodies of those who had leukoderma (vitiligo) from graveyards and consigning them to flames, believing that it brings good rain. The Times of India noted that live water storage levels in the arid region of Marathwada have plummeted to just 9.6% of capacity. Business Insider reported that a weeks long drought across parts of southeast Asia has killed hundreds of thousands of fish in a reservoir in Vietnam and pushed a key metric for coffee prices to record levels.
According to media reports (The Associated Press), the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted that about half of Zimbabwe's population urgently needs food and water after the country's worst drought in four decades. With about 7.6 million of the country's 15 million people needing "lifesaving and life-sustaining" humanitarian assistance, the U.N. humanitarian agency launched an appeal for $430 million to help those most in need. Business Day added that the Zimbabwean government forecasts staple maize production will drop 72% in the 2023/24 season, worsening the country's food situation due to an El Niño-induced drought. According to the government's crop assessment report, estimated maize production is 634,699 tonnes for the season, representing a 72% decrease from the previous season. Project Hope reported that severe drought in Zambia has impacted nearly half the population and has affected health care, food security, water availability, and electricity. This has been the driest agriculture season in over 40 years, exacerbated by the climate crisis and El Niño.
It’s a long report, and two months out of date. The USDA July world production report hasn’t reported reduced production in any staple crops except oil seeds and corn, which puts this in some kind of context.
4. Floods.
Only the ongoing flooding in southern china seems worth a mention. Same as last year very bad. China is suffering from climate change to a much greater degree than the US.
Flooding in China