Unrelenting rains led to a miserable famine in Europe from 1315-1317. Just how wet was it? A new study reveals that the beginning of the famine included some of the wettest years in the last 700 years.
Scientists are unraveling the driving forces of one of the worst environmental disasters in human history, in hopes of predicting and preparing for the next global drought.
New research gives a unifying explanation of the Sahel’s past, present and future climate patterns.
A video interview with climate scientist Bradfield Lyon, who explains his latest research on what’s driving rainfall patterns in parts of East Africa.
The point is setting priorities right, and for an agency like the World Food Programme, our focus is of course vulnerable people in the most vulnerable countries, countries where climate change is a multiplier of hunger risk. –- WFP’s Carlo Scaramella, in the fifth in a series of video interviews.
Video Short: IRI’s Madeleine Thomson discusses the short- and long-term health risks of the East Africa famine
In our latest video interview, climate scientist Tufa Dinku talks about his work on combining weather station data with satellite information to generate high-resolution data sets. These data could be used for making more accurate forecasts and can feed into other climate risk management activities, such as early-warning systems. With funding from Google.org, Dinku and… read more
Watch a video interview of climate scientist Brad Lyon on the conditions leading up to the ongoing drought in East Africa. He says there’s a chance of La Niña forming later in the year, which could have devastating consequences for a region already plagued by widespread famine.
For all its problems, Southern California has been a wonderful home for a lot of people over the past 100 or so years. It has nice beaches, good roads, plenty of places to eat, and, for now, a reliable supply of drinking water. Now imagine the L.A. riots had spread across the entire region, plunging… read more
A new study says that for all of its ill effects, the Laki volcanic eruption of 1783-84 probably was not the main culprit behind one of the coldest winters in hundreds of years, as many scientists — and contemporary observer Benjamin Franklin — have speculated.
