ICYMI
@SilviaMarton
@mina
@energiepirat

#SouthAmerica
#Brazil
#ClimateCrisis #Megadraught

Via
By #TerrenceMcCoy / #WashingtonPost

"2024 might be a year of historic drought in Brazil, she said. But don’t expect the record to stand for long.

“You can put this in capital letters,” said Gatti. “👉It WILL get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptic situation, and unfortunately we only wake up at the last minute.”..."👈

https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/113147354426558291

CC @breadandcircuses

Bread and Circuses

2024-09-16 13:00:14

Excerpts from an article in which scientists explain the cause of South America's devastating drought and wildfires...
_____________________________

Brazil is in the grip of its worst drought on record, an event that has parched at least 59% of Latin America’s largest country and dried out more than 1,400 cities.

Much of the crisis, scientists say, can be explained by climate change, which is driving temperatures higher and making rainfall more unpredictable. But it’s been exacerbated by the deforestation of the Amazon, which has the potential to disrupt rainfall patterns across much of South America.

“We have to focus on why this is happening,” said Philip Fearnside, a biologist at the National Institute of Amazon Research. “This is global warming and deforestation.”

Reliant on trees, the hydraulic system is now being frayed by deforestation. The destruction has been most acute in the southeastern Amazon, precisely where the moisture from the Atlantic is first deposited. The loss of vegetation is reducing the volume of water that’s reaching the continent.

In a country where agricultural gains often come at the loss of the natural environment, many think “forest is a waste of land,” said Luciana Gatti, a climate researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

2024 might be a year of historic drought in Brazil, she said. But don’t expect the record to stand for long.

“You can put this in capital letters,” said Gatti. “It WILL get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptic situation, and unfortunately we only wake up at the last minute.”
_____________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://archive.ph/VO6eb

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

Excerpts from an article in which scientists explain the cause of South America's devastating drought and wildfires...
_____________________________

Brazil is in the grip of its worst drought on record, an event that has parched at least 59% of Latin America’s largest country and dried out more than 1,400 cities.

Much of the crisis, scientists say, can be explained by climate change, which is driving temperatures higher and making rainfall more unpredictable. But it’s been exacerbated by the deforestation of the Amazon, which has the potential to disrupt rainfall patterns across much of South America.

“We have to focus on why this is happening,” said Philip Fearnside, a biologist at the National Institute of Amazon Research. “This is global warming and deforestation.”

Reliant on trees, the hydraulic system is now being frayed by deforestation. The destruction has been most acute in the southeastern Amazon, precisely where the moisture from the Atlantic is first deposited. The loss of vegetation is reducing the volume of water that’s reaching the continent.

In a country where agricultural gains often come at the loss of the natural environment, many think “forest is a waste of land,” said Luciana Gatti, a climate researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

2024 might be a year of historic drought in Brazil, she said. But don’t expect the record to stand for long.

“You can put this in capital letters,” said Gatti. “It WILL get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptic situation, and unfortunately we only wake up at the last minute.”
_____________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://archive.ph/VO6eb

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

This is a terrifying article.

Methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas, is increasing fast in our atmosphere — both from industrial emissions AND from "natural" sources triggered by global warming, which then cause more global warming, and so on, and so on...
_______________________________

New research shows that feedbacks in the climate system are boosting methane emissions from natural sources, especially tropical wetlands.

Scientists say that an abrupt surge in methane emissions in the early 2000s is probably due mainly to the response of wetlands to warming, with additional contributions coming from fossil fuel use, “implying that anthropogenic emissions must decrease more than expected to reach a given warming goal.”

Increasing rainfall, a well-documented impact of global warming, is making wetlands larger and wetter, and a warmer world fosters more plant growth, which means more decomposing material that emits methane.

About 60% of methane emissions are from fossil fuel use, farming, landfills, and waste, with the rest coming from rotting vegetation in wetlands in the tropics and Northern Hemisphere.

A new trouble spot is in the Arctic, where scientists recently found unexpectedly large methane emissions in winter. And globally, the increase in water vapor caused by global warming is slowing the rate at which methane breaks down in the atmosphere.
_______________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28082024/surging-methane-emissions-major-climate-shift/

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis