From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Weldon
Are the droughts in Somalia due to climate change?
Inevitably the long running drought in Somalia has led to claims that climate change is responsible.
The first thing to note though is that the direct cause has been La Nina, which is now into its third years and invariably leads to drought in that part of the world.
But what are the longer term trends?
According to World Bank data, rainfall trends have been steadily increasing since the 1970s and 80s, the time of the Sahel drought which led to the Band Aid concerts, and which were the direct result of global cooling.
Over the longer period little has changed, though occasionally we get exceptionally wet years.
However the World Bank data is incomplete, particularly in the early years, where some regional data is estimated. And, of course, country averages may cover up the areas suffering most.
According to the BBC, the region suffering most from drought is just to the west of Mogadishu, known as the Bay region:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-63116210
https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/somalia/trends-variability-historical
The World Bank has good data for Bay, going back to 1901, and this actually shows a very similar pattern to the national data. Note that rainfall totals are higher than the national ones, which are lower because of the desert region to the north.
Undoubtedly the fact that La Nina is now in its third year has exacerbated the drought, but population growth, a ten-fold increase since 1950, is the main reason why droughts like these, which are perfectly natural and common events, now have such a human impact. The long running civil war, of course, has hardly helped matters either.
Like many African countries, Somalia’s population is doubling every 20 years. So whatever food they grow has more mouths to feed. So…. blame climate! And forget about those pesky tribal wars as well. Just blame climate!
What’s the over/under on such shakedown demands in the lead up to COP27?
How many did we see in October, is anyone keeping count?
Because of course this is an orchestrated media narrative campaign
why do so many people that are supposed to be educated keep on claiming the climate causes stuff? the climate describes the PAST weather, it is NOT a force, it has NO POWER and has NEVER caused even one weather event.