Good news! #USAID FEWS NET is back up fews.net

The continuous monitoring of acute food insecurity is critical if we are to understand the stability of food systems in our ever more turbulent world. Increasingly frequent conflict, climate, and price shocks make FEWS NET more important than ever

Famines have been declining for nearly 150 years. But we could return to the 1950s-1970s when deaths from famine were orders of magnitude higher.

If we decide that we don't want to feed the world, we won't.

If we decide to let hungry people starve, they will.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Perhaps we are actually in a La Niña after all? The "Relative" ONI signal shows that we may be in a La Niña after all, and the atmospheric patterns are consistent with this

www.climate.gov/news-feature...

There is some sensitivity to the oceanic conditions depending on whether you use the standard Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) from NOAA or if you use the "Relative" ONI, which measures SST in the 3.4 region against tropical average SST. Either way though, the atmosphere isn't strongly coupled

Are we in a #LaNiña? Probably not, but we're getting some of the important impacts in #drought-prone food-insecure areas anyway.

SSTs are only weakly cool but the east-west gradient is forcing the typical teleconnection in the Horn of Africa and is forecast to do so in Central Asia

Interested in how climate extremes affect crop yields?

Apply for a two-year postdoc to work with me, Deepak Ray,
and Corey Lesk!

Applications due March 11th Feel free to email me with questions: ael.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/hydrol...

application: sites.google.com/umn.edu/ione...

If the forecast for a continued lack of precipitation verifies it will be disastrous for many of the grain crops in the region

FEWS NET estimates that much of the region is already experience crisis levels of acute food insecurity
fews.net/southern-afr...

One notable exception (thankfully) is South Africa, which has experienced dry conditions but only moderately so.

Climate stress indicators continue to be mixed. The outcome of the maize season there is still uncertain and may depend on the weather in the coming weeks

Southern #Africa is experiencing an #ENSO-forced #drought at a critical period for crop development. This is, unfortunately, common during El Niños as outlined by @GEOCropMonitor back in August.

Based on @HarvestProgram's monitoring, heat and drought stress is widespread

This year the forecast follows this trend. See the NASA soil moisture forecast below (ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/fldas/models...)

Zambia is right at the northern edge of the ENSO teleconnection, so it's often mixed. Negative impacts on maize yields are most common in the south and southwest because that is where precipitation deficits are most common.

El Niño is still here! How do we expect this to affect crop yields?

Poor #maize yields in Central America + Southern Africa due to drought

With the positive IOD, flooding is a concern in the Horn of Africa

But #ElNiño may be good news in #Afghanistan, which has suffered from a multi-year drought