Meanwhile...

[oioioi]

Hundreds of Little Blue Penguins Are Washing Up Dead in New Zealand Amid an Ocean Heatwave

Hikers and beach visitors have spotted hundreds of dead penguins, called little blue penguins or kororā (their Māori name), washed up on the western shore, according to a report from Radio New Zealand. The sightings are indicative of a larger bird die-off, triggered by warm ocean temperatures, according to local conservation authorities.

New Zealand Department of Conservation post-mortem examinations revealed many of the birds were particularly vulnerable juveniles. The young penguins died of starvation and hypothermia, with no fat to help them hold onto heat in the water.

Counterintuitively, seabirds dying of cold corresponds with hotter ocean temperatures caused by both climate change and the weather phenomenon La Niña, a Depart of Conservation representative, Graeme Taylor, told RNZ.

The kororā “prefer to find their food in cold water,” explained Taylor in May. “But when you have got La Niña conditions like we’ve had this summer with the constant northeasterly winds coming in from the subtropics you’ll get the sea temperatures raised above normal, and the food supply for the penguins diminishes with those warm conditions.” With so little food, the penguins aren’t able to build up the body fat they need for insulation.

https://gizmodo.com/little-blue-penguins-new-zealand-die-off-1849058881


Unprecedented heatwave cooks western Europe, with temperatures hitting 43 degrees Celsius

An intense and unprecedently early heatwave is baking western Europe, with temperatures in many places topping 40 degrees Celsius Saturday.

Temperatures were high across most of Western Europe on the first day of the weekend. France and the Iberian Peninsula have been hit particularly hard.

In southwest France, there were peaks of close to 42 to 43 degrees Celsius, as the city of Biarritz broke an "absolute" temperature record.

Nearly three-quarters of the country's population -- some 45 million people -- were issued with red or orange heat alerts in what is the earliest heatwave ever recorded in France.

https://www.euronews.com/2022/06/18/unprecedented-heatwave-cooks-western-europe-with-temperatures-hitting-43c


Worst Flooding in Decades Submerges Northeastern Bangladesh

Days of heavy rain at the beginning of monsoon season have caused widespread flooding in northeastern Bangladesh, leaving millions stranded and vast areas inundated, officials said Friday.

The deluge has come on the heels of a pre-monsoon flood that ravaged the same northeastern region just a month ago, submerging 70% of Sylhet and 60% of neighboring Sunamganj, leaving at least 10 people dead and more than 2 million stranded.

Jahangir Hossain, deputy commissioner of Sunamganj district, told VOA the latest flooding had submerged a large part of the Sylhet-Sunamganj highway, thwarting relief and rescue operations.

"The severity of the flood in my district has surpassed all the past records," he said. "Sunamganj is practically cut off from the rest of the country.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/worst-flooding-in-decades-submerges-northeastern-bangladesh-/6622323.html


Malnutrition, animal attacks on the rise as Horn of Africa experiences severe drought

An estimated 185,000 children in eastern Ethiopia are suffering from severe malnutrition as the region experiences a “once-in-a-lifetime” drought, the charity Save the Children said on Thursday.

“If the world does not widen its gaze from the war in Ukraine and act immediately, an explosion of child deaths is about to happen in the Horn of Africa,” she said. “Four rainy seasons have failed in the space of two years – killing crops and livestock and drying up water sources. Forecasts suggest the next October to December rains are likely to fail too.”

In a new report, Save the Children warned that the situation is set to worsen over the coming months as food prices continue to rise. The unprecedented conditions have also led to a change in animal behaviors, the charity said, as desperate monkeys and warthogs are encroaching on human communities in search of food and water. In the Shabelle zone of the Somali region, families have reported witnessing monkeys attacking children out of desperation.

“We have been receiving reports that many families have had to fend off hungry monkeys with sticks,” Abdirizak Ahmed, Save the Children’s area operation manager in the east of Ethiopia, said. “The monkeys never normally attack people, but the situation is so terrible that they are resorting to unnatural behavior like this especially in Dawa and Shebelle areas, the first areas affected by the drought and the driest. We understand the children were unharmed, but it's filled people with fear about what the future will bring.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/malnutrition-animal-attacks-horn-africa-experiences-severe-drought/story?id=85436833


Heat Wave Devastates India’s Mango Harvest

AKBARPUR, India—A mango orchard nestled in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has passed through three generations of Deepak Kumar’s family. His grandfather planted the saplings 35 years ago and by June, the trees are usually heavy with fruit.

This season’s record-breaking high temperatures, which began in March, have devastated the orchard. Mr. Kumar estimates that his mango harvest will plunge by at least 70%.

“We are helpless. We have massive losses,” the 33-year-old said. “This extreme hot weather has come for the first time.”

A scorching heat wave in India has wreaked havoc on crops including mangoes and wheat, threatening the livelihoods of farmers and elevating food prices for the country’s nearly 1.4 billion people. India suffered the hottest March since record-keeping began 122 years ago, with average temperatures close to 92 degrees but sometimes reaching 104 degrees. The intense heat rolled into April, which was the warmest in 50 years. And parts of the country experienced record-high temperatures in May as well, with one neighborhood in New Delhi soaring to nearly 121 degrees.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/heat-wave-devastates-indias-mango-harvest-11655557200


Alaska never saw large tundra fires like the East Fork Fire until climate change provided more fuel

The East Fork Fire in Western Alaska is the state’s largest fire at the moment, estimated at more than 150,000 acres Thursday, and it’s burning in a region where, just a couple decades ago, large fires would not have been expected.
And a major contributing factor is our warming climate, says climate specialist Rick Thoman with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Thoman says hot, dry weather and a lightning strike at the end of May combined to make the East Fork Fire the biggest tundra fire on record, by far, for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region.

https://www.kyuk.org/science-and-environment/2022-06-16/alaska-never-saw-large-tundra-fires-like-the-east-fork-fire-until-climate-change-provided-more-fuel


Biden says major economies must speed up climate change efforts, improve energy security

WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday called on China and other major economies to redouble their efforts to combat climate change and improve energy security, warning that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had sharpened the need for urgent action.

At the third virtual gathering of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) under his presidency, Biden urged countries to accelerate moves to cut methane emissions, adopt ambitious targets for zero-emission vehicles and work to clean up global shipping.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-lead-major-economies-push-more-urgent-action-climate-2022-06-17/

[JoeOtterbein]

1. K n R Thanks for posting

(tears)

[Ferrets are Cool]

2. K and R

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[rubbersole]

4. And with that ray of sunshine...

...we are not going to be forgiven by our children. We knew better and didn't fix it while we enjoyed our "lifestyle".

[YoshidaYui]

5. And Republicans say there is no

Climate Change.

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Keep in mind, it's almost Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

[LT Barclay]

7. I've been trying to remember which climate scientist said that the world will be unrecognizable in

20 years? I'm really just trying to know how far we are into that 20.
He was one of the few that predicted more immediate impacts and what we have seen so far has surpassed his predictions.

[electric_blue68]

8. Yikes!!!!!...

these poor people in India, Europe, So. Africa. 😮😮😮



And the little blue peguins
I love them...


(look up "cookie" the little blue peguin Cincinnati Zoo)