Climate change causes record drought in the Amazon

According to analysis by a team of international scientists from World Weather Attribution, an organization that specializes in assessing the role of climate change in extreme weather patterns around the world, global warming makes droughts 30 times more likely, leading to extremely high temperatures and contributing to reduced rainfall.

A boy walks on the dry Igarape stream, as water levels at a major river port in Brazil's Amazon rainforest hit their lowest in at least 121 years in Manaus, Brazil. Photo: Reuters

The study was conducted from June to November 2023. Accordingly, scientists predict that drought in nine countries with the Amazon rainforest, including Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, will worsen in 2024 after the rainy season begins to decrease in May.

Protecting the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, is seen as crucial to curbing climate change, as the forest plays a major role in absorbing the Earth's massive greenhouse gases.

“We should really be concerned about the health of the Amazon,” said Regina Rodrigues, study co-author and researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

However, researchers say drought has reduced river levels in many parts of the Amazon to record lows. This could exacerbate wildfires, which, when combined with climate change and deforestation, could push the Amazon into a state from which it cannot recover. The forest’s biodiversity would gradually dry out and the Amazon would no longer be a lush rainforest.

Houseboats and a boat stranded on the Rio Negro river, in Cacau Pirera, Iranduba. Photo: Reuters

In addition, the study found that El Niño – a periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean – also contributed to the reduced rainfall. While the region has faced at least three other severe droughts in the past 20 years, the scale of this drought is unprecedented and affects the entire Amazon basin.

In Brazil, water levels in a major tributary of the Amazon River have dropped to their lowest since 1902. Smaller streams on this tributary have almost disappeared.

"In just a few months, waterways have dried up, forcing people to make difficult journeys, pulling boats across dry rivers to access food, medicine and other essential goods," said study co-author Simphiwe Stewart of the Netherlands-based Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center.

A tugboat and a barge carrying three trucks, 2,000 empty gas cylinders and a backhoe, are stranded on the sandy banks of the dry Rio Negro on October 10, 2023, in a severely drought-stricken area in Cacau Pirera, Brazil. Photo: Reuters

Researchers in Brazil say low water levels and high temperatures killed at least 178 endangered pink and gray dolphins in the Amazon River last year. Thousands of fish have also died due to low oxygen levels in Amazon tributaries.

Ngoc Anh (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/bien-doi-khi-hau-gay-ra-han-han-ky-luc-o-amazon-post282412.html