Much of Argentina lived in the second week of January record high temperatures. On Tuesday, January 11 at the Buenos aires city 41.1 degrees Celsius were recorded “the second highest temperature since 1957”, according to the National Metereological Service (SMN). And even so, that was not the highest record: on Friday the 14th we touched 42 degrees in CABA, while in Santiago del Estero 43.4 degrees Celsius were felt, making it the hottest place in Argentina. The heat wave hit the entire southern hemisphere. Australia he suffocated with record marks. A weather station in Onslow, a coastal city in the west of the country, recorded a temperature of 50.7 degrees.
And one might think it’s just because it’s summer. The reality is that all over the planet summers are being every time hottest and that this is largely due to the climate change or crisis. Heat waves are increasingly accompanied by forest fires even in areas where they are not frequent.
Just as this extreme heat wave was beginning, the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union reported on Monday the 10th that the year 2021 was one of the seven hottest ever recorded. And furthermore, that the global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane they followed his growing trend: In both cases they trap solar radiation and heat the atmosphere around the planet.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels reached a annual record averaged 414 parts per million (ppm), while methane (CH4) came in at 1,876 parts per billion (ppb). The carbon emissions from forest fires worldwide totaled 1,850 megatonnes, fueled heavily by fires in Siberia, Russian Federation. In 2020, these emissions had reached 1,750 megatons.
Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, sums up: “The year 2021 has been another one of extreme temperatures, with the hottest summer in Europe, heat waves in the Mediterranean, not forgetting the unprecedented high temperatures in North America. The last seven years have been the seven warmest on record. These events are a stark reminder of the need to change the way we act, take decisive and effective steps towards a sustainable society and work to reduce net carbon emissions.”
For his part, Vincent-Henri Peuch, Director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Watch Service, points out that “the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane continue to increase year after year and with no signs of slowing down. These greenhouse gases They are the main drivers of climate change.”
hot planet
“Extreme heat waves are largely linked to the climate crisis, which although it is multifactorial Its main cause is greenhouse gases, which have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution. It was in recent decades when technology made it possible to accept this cause as the main one,” he explains. Irene Wais, biologist, ecologist, with an International Postgraduate Degree in Environmental Impact Assessment from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The German climatologist Friederike Otto match. And he explains: “The repetition of so many anomalies in such a short space of time can only be explained by the action of humans. Earth’s climate has always been subject to periods of extremes, but were it not for the greenhouse effect, they would be rarer and less destructive. The year 2021 made it clear that there is no point on the planet that is safe from radical occurrences, including developed countries. It was shocking to see Germany and Belgium, two of the richest nations in the world, being surprised by the intensity of the floods July, simply because its volume was deemed impossible. The alerts were not sounded in time, the cities have been destroyed and hundreds of people have died. Something is very wrong in the gear that moves the planet’s climate.”
News: What other elements affect heat waves, or is it all climate crisis?
irene wais: Various, but mostly modes of mass production. The argument is that the world cannot be fed without agrochemicals and artificial fertilizers. That is an absolute fallacy from the socio-environmental point of view. Ecology as a science (and I say ecology, not environmentalism, which is something else) proves the opposite. With these models the hunger and inequality they go deeper into the world even more. The European Union is trying to reverse it by returning to local and agroecological production.
News: According to the Copernicus Service on Change, 2021 was the seventh hottest year on record. In addition, the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane continue to rise. To what extent does this influence the daily life of the planet? And at a macro and medium- and long-term level?
wais: It influences at a macro level and in terms of countdown I would dare to say, because if we are not at the Tipping Point or point of no return we are very close to him. Thats why he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, UN) was so forceful in its report last August and strengthened the trend of previous reports. The report on the effects on biodiversity that will be presented next February is going to be lapidary. Some very worrying data has already been leaked.
what’s coming
“In February, the IPCC plans to publish its assessment of the latest research on how global warming is affecting people and ecosystems – officially explains the UN-. A month later, the panel is ready to provide an analysis of the options for curb emissions and stop global warming. Combined with last year’s report on climate science, the world’s governments will have a robust review of the state of the art in climate change research.”
News: When one looks at the map of rising temperatures, much of Argentina is currently among the warmest areas. What and how is the climate changing in the country?
wais: To know a climate change, by definition 30 years of historical record are needed, but also in Argentina there is a particular situation. 85% of the country’s water resources are found in Mesopotamia and the Humid Pampa, either on the surface or underground (mainly through the Guarani Aquifer). Today in our country an important factor is the lack of water in seven provinces in water emergency (Formosa, Chaco, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, Misiones, Corrientes and Entre Ríos) by the extraordinary drop of the Paraná River which is our “backbone”. That is a product in part of the historical deforestation in the upper basin in Brazilian territory and the closing of gates in hydroelectric dams upstream when there is a lack of water in states of the basin in the upper section of the river, in Brazil, due to the lack of rain, which in turn is the result of being in transit for a prolonged period of “The Girl” with extreme droughts.
Wais describes more consequences. “It’s like a vicious circle. The culturally and commercially important migratory fish of Paraná (sábalo, dorado, patí, pacú, manguruyú, surubí and others), many of which are endemic species of South America, cannot raise their fingerlings in the dry wetlands. Large sizes ripe for spawning cannot do so upstream for lack of water in tributary streams as they used to and are caught by fishermen seeking bread for today even if that means hunger for tomorrow. The island lagoons suffered intentional burning especially in Entre Ríos territory in front of important Santa Fe towns such as Rosario where the air became unbreathable. And also in front of cities and towns in the north of the province of Buenos Aires.”
Returning to the report of the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union, it points out that during the first five months of the year 2021 relatively low temperatures were recorded, compared to the last very warm years. However, from June through October, monthly temperatures were consistently among the fourth warmest on record. The temperatures of the last 30 years (1991-2020) were about 0.9°C above the pre-industrial level.
And a fact: one of the greenhouse gases that is increasing the most is methane. And methane is very particular. “Dried and burned wetlands do not have enough water pressure, which causes methane to remain “imprisoned” at the bottom. Being dry, the gas is released with bubbles that come to the surface easily and they restart fires. They call themzombie fires‘” explains Wais. “Methane is a tremendous greenhouse gas and it is also fuel. At night lights are seen that every now and then in periods of downspout used to be seen for a long time. They are methane bubbles that explode at a certain distance from the ground and at night they are better seen because they appear as flashes in the middle of the field”.
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