Hello!
Our attention is turning to the Southern Hemisphere in today’s newsletter as countries from Argentina to Australia to South Africa have been experiencing record heat and raging wildfires.
While a lot of us in the Northern Hemisphere have been experiencing cold spells, heavy snow and rainfall, those of us in the South have been battling droughts and facing record heat.
Scientists are predicting that even more extreme temperatures could lie ahead – and possibly another global annual high – after three of the hottest years on record.
In January, a record-setting heat dome enveloped Australia, sending temperatures near 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) while heat and catastrophic wildfires gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina's Patagonia ablaze and killing 21 people in coastal towns in Chile.
In fact, a lot of the ‘Climate Buzz’ stories take place in Africa where people in my birth nation, Kenya, are facing a severe drought. The crisis has also hit countries in the Horn of Africa, with Somalia declaring a national drought emergency in November after recurrent seasons of poor rainfall.
But the drought is not just limited to East Africa as farmers in South Africa's most visited and affluent province, Western Cape, are facing one of the worst droughts in living memory.
Additionally, South Africa has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years.
There’s also a strong Tropical Cyclone that tore through Madagascar this week. The National Office for the Management of Risks and Crises, better known as the BNGRC, had warned earlier that rising sea levels in Toamasina were already flooding streets.
Further afield in Morocco, the North African country has been experiencing weeks of torrential rain and releases from overflowing dams have inundated villages, farmland and the city of Ksar El Kebir in the northwest region.
Meanwhile over in the global north, Spain and Portugal have been battling a series of storms. Keep scrolling for more on the latest downpour in the Iberian Peninsula.
