Humidity

• The implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the United States amplifies this trend, mandating enhanced reporting protocols for various food products and impacting the entire US food supply chain, including exporters.
• Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research projects that worldwide revenues from food cold chain track and trace operations will surpass US$7 billion by 2032, encompassing hardware sales and recurring SaaS subscriptions.
• The need for real-time monitoring across the food supply chain has been exacerbated due to the regulatory compliance requirements in North America and Europe.
• "Beyond regulatory compliance, food waste mitigation is also a key enabler for cold chain monitoring growth in the food industry.

• They happen worldwide and are becoming more common, including in Australia, due to global warming.
• Flash droughts can occur anywhere and at any time of the year.
• Last year, a flash drought hit the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales, roughly 300 kilometres north-west of Sydney.
• Flash droughts are set to get more common as the world heats up.

What makes a flash drought different?

• The latter result from extended drops in rainfall, such as the drought affecting parts of southwest Western Australia due to the much shortened winter wet season last year.
• Flash droughts develop when sudden large drops in rainfall coincide with above-average temperatures.
• That year saw flash droughts appear across the northern hemisphere, such as the megadrought affecting China’s Yangtze river basin and Spain.

• The flash drought greatly affected agricultural production in the Upper Hunter region, due to the region’s reliance on water from rivers.
• Flash droughts are characterised by abrupt periods of low rainfall leading to rapid drought onset, particularly when accompanied by above-average temperatures.

The Upper Hunter drought is part of a trend

Flash droughts will be more common in the future. That’s because higher temperatures will more often coincide with dry conditions, as relative humidity falls across many parts of Australia and globally. Climate change is linked to shorter, heavier bursts of rain followed by longer periods of little rainfall.

• The much lower rainfall continued until November in the Upper Hunter.
• While flash droughts occurred in other parts of south-east Australia, we focused on the Upper Hunter as it remained in drought the longest.

What were the climate drivers of this drought?

• We used machine-learning techniques to identify the key climate drivers of the drought.
• Combined, the impact of global warming with the three climate drivers made rainfall much more variable.

Victoria, too, fits the global warming pattern

• The flash drought followed very high January rainfall (top 5% of records) dropping rapidly to very low rainfall (bottom 5%) in February and March.
• The pattern of the 2024 flash drought in Victoria typifies the increasing trend under global warming of long dry periods, interspersed by short, heavy rainfall events.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Advent Technologies Holdings, Inc., an innovation-driven leader in the fuel cell and hydrogen technology sectors, is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Advent Technologies A/S (“Advent”), has signed a Joint Development Agreement (“JDA”) with Siemens Energy, one of the world's leading energy technology companies.
• The innovative clean energy solution resulting from this multi-year collaboration is expected to initially address the power needs of large yachts.
• This agreement builds upon the strong collaboration between Advent and Siemens Energy, which began in February 2022 with the Sanlorenzo Life Ocean pilot project.
• Advent Technologies' HT-PEM fuel cells utilizing the innovative Ion Pair™ MEA technology, offer high-temperature operation between 80°C and 240°C.

• Focusing on the intersection between science and interior design, “ASID Impact of Design Brief: Climate, Building Resiliency & Human Health” is the first of two free resources from ASID and CIRI.
• The brief explores how weather events impact the built environment and interior design, the effects of extreme weather on human health and building resilience, and insight into designing for the future.
• The extreme weather brief will be followed by a second brief from the ASID-CIRI team; with the second focusing on the effects of heat.
• “With the increase of extreme weather events and climate change, the interior design profession must be well-equipped to better understand and incorporate resilient solutions into their practices.