Malawi Wire

Climate change isn’t causing the multi-year drought that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, but warming is worsening some of the dry spell’s impacts, a new study says.

The natural three-year climate condition La Nina – a cooling of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide temporarily but lasted much longer than normal this time – is the chief culprit in a drought that has devastated central South America and is still going on, according to a flash study released Thursday by international scientists at World Weather Attribution. The study has not been peer reviewed yet.

Drought has hit the region since 2019 with last year seeing the driest year in Central Argentina since 1960, widespread crop failures and Uruguay declaring an agricultural emergency in October. Water supplies and transportation were hampered, too.

“There is no climate change signal in the rainfall,” said study co-author Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College in London. “But of course, that doesn’t mean that climate change doesn’t play an important role in the context of these droughts. Because of the extreme increase in heat that we see, the soils do dry faster and the impacts are more severe they would have otherwise been.”

The heat has increased the evaporation of what little water there is, worsened a natural water shortage and added to crop destruction, scientists said. The same group of scientists found that climate change made the heat wave last December 60 times more likely.

And cutting down trees in the southern Amazon in 2020 reached the highest rate in a decade and that translates to less moisture being available farther south in Argentina, said study lead author Paola Arias, a climate scientist and professor at the Environmental School of the University of Antioquia in Colombia.

The team of scientists at World Weather Attribution use observations and climate models to see if they find a climate change factor in how frequent or how strong extreme weather is. They compare what happened to how often it happened in the past, and they run computer simulations that contrast reality to what would have happened in a world without human-caused climate change from burning of fossil fuels.

In this drought’s case, the models actually show a slight, not significant, increase in moisture from climate change but a clear connection to La Nina, which scientists say is waning. It will still take months if not longer for the region to get out of the drought — and that depends on whether the flip side of La Nina — El Nino — appears, said study co-author Juan Rivera, a scientist at the Argentine Institute for Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences.

In the past, the team of scientists has found no obvious climate change connection in some droughts and floods, but they do find global warming is a factor in most of the severe weather they investigate.

“One of the reasons why we do these attribution studies is to show what the realistic impacts of climate change are. And it’s not that climate change makes everything worse,” Otto said. “Not every bad thing that’s happening now is because of climate change.”

Source: Voice of America

The United States Justice Department has in recent months escalated its antitrust probe on Apple Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

Reuters had previously reported the Justice Department opened an antitrust probe into Apple in 2019.

The Wall Street Journal report said more litigators have now been assigned, while new requests for documents and consultations have been made with all the companies involved.

The probe will also look at whether Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is anti-competitive, favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the report added.

The Justice Department declined to comment, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: Voice of America

The confirmation of more bird flu cases in South America raised alarm bells in Brazil, which remains free of contagion even after its close neighbors Argentina and Uruguay confirmed cases there on Wednesday.

In a press conference to discuss the global sanitary hazard, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said Brazil, the world’s biggest chicken exporter, would bolster measures to prevent outbreaks as the virus continued to spread.

Until now, bird flu cases had been detected in commercial farms in Bolivia, which borders Brazil, and in Peru and Ecuador, Favaro said.

On Wednesday, cases in wild birds were confirmed in Uruguay and Argentina, sparking a health emergency in both.

In recent days, Brazil also investigated suspected cases of the highly pathogenic bird flu.

The suspect cases occurred in wild birds in Rio Grande do Sul state, where many Brazilian meatpackers operate, and in domestic birds, ducks and chickens with bird flu symptoms in Amazonas state, according to the minister.

None of the suspect cases turned out to be avian influenza, he said.

Avian flu, which has reached new corners of the globe, has become endemic for the first time in some wild birds that transmit the virus to poultry, experts said.

The virus has spurred import bans in some countries and pushed egg prices to record highs in some parts of the world.

Brazil is home to some of the world’s biggest meatpackers. It has never registered a bird flu case.

But since late last year, the Brazilian meat industry has been on high alert. Most of Brazil’s chicken processors operate in southern states, making the discoveries in Uruguay and Argentina worrisome.

“It should be remembered that the situation in Uruguay (affecting wild birds) is an example of a case that would not suspend trade and exports of poultry products, in accordance with recommendations established by the World Organization for Animal Health,” Brazil’s meat lobby ABPA said in a statement.

The Uruguayan government declared a state of national sanitary emergency after detecting bird flu in five dead black neck swans between the departments of Maldonado and Rocha.

“It’s very important to isolate wild birds from domestic birds, especially sources of food and water,” Virginia Russi, a technician from the agriculture ministry of Uruguay told a news conference.

Argentina’s Agriculture Secretary Juan Jose Bahillo also confirmed its first cases of bird flu in wild birds, leading it to declare a sanitary emergency and reinforce measures against the disease.

Source: Voice of America

• Over the past few days, widespread floods caused by heavy rainfall affected particularly Blantyre City (Southern Region, southern Malawi), surrounding areas and 28 councils, leading to casualties and damage.

• According to media, at least four people died and three others are still missing. Damage to roads, bridges, houses and the material property was also reported.

• In the 2022/2023 rainy season, the Department of Disaster Management Affairs registered a total of 62 fatalities, 185 injured people and more than 94,000 affected people across the country.

• For the next 24 hours, moderate to heavy rain is forecast over most parts of Malawi.

Source: European Commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations