Barren barley and wheat fields stretch across the dry landscape of northern Afghanistan, the result of persistent drought and flash flooding that has left thousands of people facing food shortages and loss of work.

From earthquakes to floods, when natural disasters strike, the military is often called on to bolster civilian responses. Policymakers throughout Latin America in particular are increasingly relying on the armed forces for emergency assistance.

Camels pulling wooden carts loaded with coconuts plod down the main road amid speeding motorcycles, buses, rickshaws, and cars. Farmers sit atop slow-moving oxcarts loaded with grasses and other cattle feed. In this region of central Gujarat, India, it appears that rural life has not changed for decades.

Global climate trends indicate that our planet will continue warming into the next century, leading to more extreme climate conditions. The Latin America and Caribbean region is vulnerable to some of the most challenging aspects of climate change – sea-level rise, changes in precipitation, glacial melting, spreading of disease, and extreme weather events.

When war breaks out, what happens to the weather forecast? Violent conflict disrupts many essential services in developing countries and one of the most overlooked is meteorology, which has surprisingly big consequences for farmers, policymakers, and the aid workers who are there to help.

According to recent polling, climate change is seen as the single most threatening international challenge around the world, and there’s evidence that all that worry is taking a psychological toll. Adding to droughts, floods, extreme weather, and die-offs, psychologists are observing higher levels of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder in certain areas and professions. Even people who do not actively stress about global warming or view it as a major threat may still suffer psychological trauma from its effects.

More than 80 percent of the estimated 42 million people living in Central Africa’s Lake Victoria Basin depend on fishing or farming for survival. Given this overwhelming reliance on natural resources, the lake’s deteriorating condition – driven by climate change, agriculture, pollution, deforestation, overfishing, and industrialization – has far-reaching implications.

An advisory released this August by the U.S. National Weather Service warned this year’s El Niño could be among the strongest ever recorded, lasting well into the first few months of 2016.