Global warming was the main driver of the severe drought that parched the Amazon River Basin in 2023. That is the alarming conclusion of a new report from World Weather Attribution (WWA), a team of international climate scientists that analyze extreme weather events. El Niño, a natural weather phenomenon long suspected as a key driver of the drought, played a much smaller role. The authors reviewed the Amazon region’s weather data, drought indices and statistical models from June through December. They found that both El Niño and climate change contributed to reduced rainfall during that period. However, climate change also led to high temperatures, significantly increasing water evaporation from plants and soils. The combination of little rain and high evaporation triggered what the authors have classified as an exceptional “agricultural drought.” The condition was made 30 times more likely due to global warming. Global temperatures are currently 1.2° Celsius (2.16° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Ben Clarke, one of the report’s authors and a researcher at the Imperial College London, said the results might come as a surprise to some. “As the Amazon drought worsened in 2023, many people pointed to El Niño to explain the event,” he said in a press conference announcing the results. “While El Niño did lead to lower levels of rainfall, our study shows that climate change is the main driver of the drought through its influence on higher temperatures.” Lake Tefé was completely dry in October…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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