The most serious pest on earth, desert locust has again upsurged in many countries of East Africa ( Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and Sudan), Arabian Peninsula (Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia)  and now has reached up to South- West Asia I.e., upto many Indian states via Iran and Indo-Pakistan border after many decades. FAO has named it as a Locust plague also for the extremely alarming situation and devastating damage caused by the immense swarm of locust threatening millions of people for prolonged food insecurity and livelihoods. Furthermore, the current situation is more likely to be worsened by new breeding going on throughout many regions of East Africa and other infested countries too. 

Now the question may arise how did this unprecedented upsurge happened?

Is there any relationship between climate change and locusts? 

Let's crave the answer.

Hot climates, excessive rainfall and unusual storm activity are believed to induce more damaging locust. Cyclones and rainfall between 2018 and 2019 on Arabian Peninsula allowed favourable environment for breeding and feeding of locusts and form the gigantic swarm increased by 8000 folds. Migrating towards the Horn of Africa and East Africa from Arab Peninsula in the summer of 2019, the swarm received unusually wet conditions ( 300% more rainfall across Horn of Africa and 400% more in Kenya) followed by cyclones. Cyclones can add more favour in swarm migration with less energy, optimizing energy for further reproduction. 

Studies have linked the unusual climates with Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a climate accentuated phenomenon. Positive phase of IOD occured during June to December of both 2018 and 2019 and that of 2019 being extreme in 40 years, drove the unprecedented Australian bushfire of 2019-2020 shifting rainfall towards East Africa leaving Australia in drought. 

Hot climate is linked to desert locust. With the increasing global temperature since industrial revolution and since 2009, the last five years have been more hotter. Day temperature of around 35 C is the perfect temperature for locust multiplication and even below this, they have ability of warming up their body temperature upto 40C succeeding optimal temperature for their metabolism.

Though their swarming behaviour is not clearly explained with respect to climate, we can safely conclude that climate change and unpredictable environment as it's consequence can make pest infestation also unpredictable and likely more severe.

Source:

FAO