THE DRY PLANET

2015 was the hottest year on record and March 2016 was the hottest March ever — and the 11th month in a row that set its own heat record, a record in itself. Scientists agree the unusually strong and prolonged El Niño, the surface warming of equatorial Pacific waters that releases heat into the atmosphere, is to blame, along with global warming. The drought in India — affecting 33 crore people in 256 districts, as per figures provided to the Supreme Court by the government — is part of a global spell of dry weather by which the Mekong basin, Horn of Africa, southern Africa, Australia, Central America have been worst hit. Usually humid northeastern Brazil is witnessing its worst drought in 35 years, and has lost 49 trillion litres of water more than normal every year over the last three years, according to NASA. In Honduras and Guatemala, over 3 million have been hit drastically, according to the UN. 2015 too was a drought year for this ‘dry corridor’ of Central America. In Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador, 6 million people face malnutrition. Parts of the US have been hit too. D4 D3

Abnormally Dry (– 0.50 to – 0.79)* Moderate Drought (– 0.80 to –1.29) Severe Drought (– 1.30 to – 1.59) D2 Some 40 million face food shortages as a result of crop failures as Africa reels under one of its worst droughts ever, according to the UN and Red Cross. Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Zambia have been badly hit; South Africa says the drought in its north and west is the worst in a century. 10 million are on the verge of acute malnutrition in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia; Ethiopia is seeing its worst drought in 50 years.

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D1 D0

Extreme Drought (– 1.60 to – 1.99) Exceptional Drought (– 2.0 or less) Shades of green to deep blue indicate Tens of millions in the Mekong river basin — Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam — have been severely hit. Myanmar has placed curbs on water usage; Vietnam and Cambodia have cut water to fields to save for drinking; rice crop has been hit in Thailand. In India, Marathwada, Vidarbha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Bundelkhand, Chhattisgarh are in the middle of drought; in Pakistan, Sindh is seeing one of its worst droughts ever. W0 W1

progression from ‘Abnormally Wet’ to ‘Exceptional Wetness’ (left to right) * SPI values W2 New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania have been the worst-hit; Queensland, New South Wales have seen rain deficiencies similar to some periods of the nearly decade-long Millennium Drought of the 2000s. In the Pacific, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam and Palau have declared national emergencies from drought — these porous-rock islands and archipelagos are in the middle of one of the worst disasters in their history. W3 W4

GIDMAPS FIGURES ARE FROM FEBRUARY 2016, THE LATEST AVAILABLE