Environment

Swarms of desert locusts that began appearing over the past few months in parts of Mali are threatening to spread northward into Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania. The swarms are believed to have initially emerged last year in the Libyan conflict zone, fed by abundant rainfall and unusually lush and moist conditions during the past summer.

The insects can consume more than their own weight in vegetation each day, and can ravage crops and pastures within hours.

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The week's hottest temperature was 111.7 degrees Fahrenheit (44.2 degrees Celsius) at Tarcoola, South Australia.

The week's coldest temperature was minus 69.3 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.3 degrees Celsius) at Russia's Vostok Antarctic research station.

Environment

The Dead Sea is slowly dying as industrial and agricultural extraction of water causes the lake to shrink at record rate over the last year.

NASA satellite images illustrating the decline of the Dead Sea over the past 40 years:

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The week's hottest temperature was 121.1 degrees Fahrenheit (49.5 degrees Celsius) at Kaedi, Mauritania.

The week's coldest temperature was minus 79.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.0 degrees Celsius) at Russia's Vostok Antarctic research station.

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Every rainy season, the Guna people living on the Panamanian white sand archipelago of San Blas brace themselves for waves gushing into their tiny mud-floor huts.

Rising ocean levels caused by global warming and decades of coral reef destruction have combined with seasonal rains to submerge the Caribbean islands for days on end.

Once rare, flooding is now so menacing that the Guna have agreed to abandon ancestral lands for an area within their semi-autonomous territory on the east coast of the mainland.

Environment

The southward shift of an atmospheric belt in the Southern Hemisphere since the 1970s is reportedly the reason why parts of Australia and southern Africa are drying out. The southward expansion of a meteorological feature known as the Hadley cell is most pronounced in autumn.

The southward shift of between 125 and 250 miles has resulted in less rainfall during April and May over southeastern Australia, and to a lesser extent over southern Africa.

Rain that previously would fall 125 to 250 miles farther north is now being directed that distance to the south due to climate change’s effect on the Hadley cell.

It is not known specifically what is causing the shift, and climate models have not accurately represented it.

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The week's hottest temperature was 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit (44.0 degrees Celsius) at Nouakchott, Mauritania. This was a record high for the date and for the month of October.

The week's coldest temperature was minus 89.1 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 67.3 degrees Celsius) at Russia's Vostok Antarctic research station.