Caribbean be warned! If the already searing heat that has already descended on the region is not only creating a generous measure of discomfort for the citizenry but may also be casting doubt on the extent to which our food production pursuits will measure up to the 25×2025 target, the regional climate monitoring body, Caribbean Climate Body (CariCOF) is predicting what is is being described as “increased heat stress” in the region for at least the duration of October. North Atlantic pressures, CariCOF is warning will persist above normal, “fueling particularly robust tropical storm activity.” Worse, it says that, going forward, “increased heat stress due to higher temperatures, humidity and heat wave frequency” could extend beyond October and into the end of 2023.
If up to this time there has been no indication that alarm bells are being rung in the region, one doubts that, given all of the various implications that an aggressive heat surge can have, the respective territories are ‘breathing easy.’ A vicious heat wave in a region that is significantly agriculture-dependent and which, these days, is engrossed in staving off what we are told is a regional food security crisis is the last thing that is needed by a region that is, even now, banking on the weather and the proficiency of our agricultural sector to help us inch towards the 25×2025 redressing of the balance between what we import and what we produce.
One would imagine that the news of an October heat wave would have a significant impact of the October 9-13 Caribbean Agriculture Week event in the Bahamas, even if some of the less urgent sections of the extant agenda have to be set aside so that the region’s qualified minds can collectively give immediate-term attention to what is no longer a heat wave warning, but, arguably, the mere tip of a climate emergency.
But it is not just the ‘heat wave’ threat that the region has to worry about. CariCOF is also reportedly warning of simultaneous shower intensity which it says will rise at the height of the rainy season, increasing the risk of floods and cascading risks, a classical ole house pun ole house circumstance, as we say in the Caribbean.
An emergency, it appears, is already upon us; what with what CariCOF says is the chance that we can anticipate “increased heat stress due to higher temperatures, humidity, and heat wave frequency” all of which, it says, will contribute to a “record-breaking Caribbean hot season.” Meanwhile, the portents for the immediate-term future appear to be far from uplifting as CariCOF notes that” heat and dryness are becoming an increasing issue in the coastal Guianas, as is the possibility of flooding through December.”
The CariCof report lists ‘northern Guyana, eastern Suriname, Tobago, and the US Virgin Islands as areas of the Caribbean where “severe, or short-term drought has already formed.
