A supercomputer is boosting efforts in East Africa to control a locust outbreak that raises what the U.N. food agency calls 'an unprecedented threat' to the region's food security.
In this photo taken on Thursday, March 5, 2020, Abubakr Salih Babiker, a climate scientist at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development's Climate Prediction and Applications Center, shows server racks containing a supercomputer in Nairobi, Kenya. A supercomputer is boosting efforts in East Africa to control a locust outbreak that raises what the U.N. food agency calls "an unprecedented threat" to the region's food security.
Based in a regional climate center in Kenya, where the insects have been particularly destructive, the supercomputer system “produces extensive weather forecasts to predict the high winds, rainfall, and humidity that provide ideal breeding conditions for locusts so climate experts can predict their next destination,” the U.K.’s Department for International Development said in a statement.
Locust swarms, sometimes as large as some cities, can destroy crops and devastate pasture for animals. Aerial spraying is generally considered the only effective control method. In Uganda, where the locust infestation has recently spread to more than 20 districts in the country’s north and northeast, soldiers have been battling swarms using hand-held spray pumps because of difficulties in getting aircraft as well as the recommended pesticide.
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