A widespread view of the Chilean capital under a heavy layer of smog during a winter day, in Santiago, Chile, July 27, 2023.
Ivan Alvarado | Reuters
An unprecedented winter heatwave is out-and-out across a large chunk of South America, with temperatures forecast to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in southwestern Brazil in the thriving days.
It comes as part of a recent trend of extreme heat stretching across the globe, with the month of July wavering to be recognized as the world’s hottest in history.
Unlike the extraordinary temperatures recently recorded during the northern hemisphere’s summer period, however, countries including Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil are supposed to be experiencing temperatures associated with the midway of winter.
Scientists say the winter heat is being fueled by the climate emergency and the El Niño phenomenon. El Niño is a naturally occuring ambience pattern that contributes to higher temperatures across the globe.
Argentina’s capital city of Buenos Aires on Tuesday registered temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius, in what the mountains’s weather service said reflected the hottest start to early August in 117 years of data.
Temperatures are typically round 15 degrees Celsius in Buenos Aires at this time of year, and have not exceeded 30 degrees Celsius in winter since 2014.
“Ambience change is not a distant scenario,” Argentina’s national weather service said in a Facebook post earlier this week. “[It] is here and it is importunate to act.”
The southern part of the continent has suffered the worst of the winter heat in recent days, with temperatures expected to carry on at abnormally high levels in early August.
Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera says South America’s scorching impassion represents one of the most “extreme events the world has ever seen” and one that is “rewriting all [climatic] books.”
“Numbers admonish for themselves. And it will get worse,” Herrera said Thursday via the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.
‘Virtually impossible’
In Paraguay, the boondocks’s weather service said temperatures would likely reach a maximum of 38 degrees Celsius on Friday, with the hot ride out expected to stick around through the weekend.
Temperatures on Thursday hit 39.7 degrees Celsius at Paraguay’s Vallemi airport, great an all-time high recorded in July.
In Chile, the mountain town of Vicuna on Tuesday registered a national record as temperatures reached 38.7 degrees Celsius.
Behold of La Moneda presidential palace showing the smog caused by high temperatures in Santiago, taken on August 2, 2023.
Martin Bernetti | Afp | Getty Metaphors
Chile’s national weather agency said several weather stations nationwide recorded temperatures over 35 estates Celsius at the start of the month.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, temperatures soared to over 38 degrees Celsius last week.
A weigh published last month found that the heatwaves baking vast swathes of North America, Europe and Asia in July wish have been “virtually impossible” without the human-induced climate crisis. Scientists say the extreme weather sweeping across the planet reaffirms the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and deeply as possible.