THREAD: It never ceases to amaze me how much you can get away with on the open ocean.

You might think that in a time of satellite megaconstellations all of the Earth's surface would be imaged regularly, & if something big happened, we'd see it.

Well, you'd be wrong... The truth is that most well-known EO satellites don't image areas of the ocean away from land.

It is surprisingly difficult to get an exact answer for 'why' here. I've heard different combinations of power-saving, downlink limitations, & land-optimized instrumentation.

THREAD: In September 2022, the Russian Government announced that it was establishing two new tank repair plants in order to support its war in Ukraine.
government.ru/docs/all/14295…

One of those is the 72nd Armoured Repair Plant just south of Kamensk-Shkhinsky (48.273188, 40.262287). I was interested in seeing in anything changed in the number of military vehicles in the parking areas for this repair plant, and if this mapped to changes in the conflict dynamics.

THREAD: On the unprecedented flooding in #Pakistan, a looming follow-on catastrophe, and a glimpse into the future of climate security. (1/14) Pakistan is currently experiencing climate change-amplified floods unlike anything in its history, but a large part of this story is being overlooked by the media. (2/14)

So, we hear a lot about how the war in Ukraine is leading to record global food prices, but here is another reason...

This is a Sentinel-2 NDVI composite image I created showing average vegetation health in India over May 2022. [1/7] And this is the same image, but this time showing the mean of the May 1 to May 25 period over the previous 5 years.
- In both images, green is healthy plants, and brown is unhealthy
-Holes in the data are caused by cloudy images being filtered out [2/7]

THREAD: So today, I submitted my master's thesis, looking at the link between the rioting and food shortages in the context of intensifying droughts due to climate change. (1/14) It's often reported in the media that climate change will cause more war and human conflict, but the actual link between them isn't well-established in studies.

However, this is what the latest IPCC report says: (2/14)

THREAD:

🌾 War in Ukraine & global food price instability 🌾

As I have mentioned a few times in the past, global food prices are at near-historic highs, already threatening global political stability. A war in Ukraine could make this situation *much* worse. (1/8) Firstly, despite a small dip in Dec 2021, the UN @FAO 's Food Price Index is still at alarmingly high levels.

The primary causes are stated as the: "high cost of inputs, the ongoing global pandemic and ever more uncertain climatic conditions" (2/8)

reliefweb.int/report/world/g…

THREAD: Fresh brown water is flooding into the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), following an announcement by Ethiopia that it will begin the dam's 2nd filling phase.

Egypt has "rejected" the decision, & the risk of conflict between Ethiopia, Sudan & Egypt is rising. (1/6) Egypt fears the filling of the huge dam will reduce the amount of water it receives from the Nile River. Given the country's dependence on this river for food production, this is an existential risk for the country. Sudan also has similar (albeit lesser) concerns. (2/6)

THREAD: Following the 2014 invasion of Crimea by Russian forces, Ukraine cut off the water flowing into the North Crimean Canal, which had previously supplied 85% of the region's drinking water.

Now, six years later, this siege is starting to bite. (1/9) Russia never managed to make up for this shortfall in water supply, and agricultural productivity declined substantially between 2014-2020.

However, now, a record drought is crippling the region, with the lowest rainfall recorded in 150 years. (2/9)
ria.ru/20200603/15724…