Latin America suffers extreme phenomena due to El Niño and climate change

The sum of the phenomenon El Niño and climate change hit Latin America and the Caribbean with great force in 2023leading to droughts, heat waves, forest fires, extreme rainfall and a
unprecedented hurricane that impacted health, food and energy security, and the economic development of the region, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In its report on the state of the climate in Latin America and the Caribbeanthe WMO confirmed that last year was the warmest year since records have been kept and warned of the acceleration of the melting of glaciers, as well as the rapid rise in sea level on the region’s Atlantic coastwhich threatens coastal areas and small island states in the Caribbean.

The WMO Secretary-General said climate hazards broke records in the region last year.

“During the second half of 2023, the conditions associated with the El Niño episode
pushed heat records to unprecedented levels and exacerbated numerous
extreme phenomena. This fact was added to the increase in temperatures and the increase in
the frequency and intensity of hazards caused by climate change due to activity
human,” explained Celeste Saulo.

Among the devastating events, Saulo cited as an example Hurricane Otis, category 5, which hit the city of Acapulco, on the Mexican Pacific coast, causing dozens of victims, billions of dollars in damage and great misfortune throughout the area.

Saul also mentioned the flooding of rivers that plunged many parts of the region into misery; the same as the intense drought that reduced the water level of the Negro River to its historical minimum in Brazil and seriously disrupted the passage of ships through the Panama Canal.

Mexico is warming faster

The report specifies that the average temperature in 2023 was 0.82°C above the average for the 1991-2020 period and that Mexico was the country with the fastest warming rate in the region: 0.3°C per decade. between 1991 and 2023. In August, Mexico reached a record of 51.4°C in the north of its territory.

Regarding rains, he details that the transition from La Niña to El Niño in the middle of the year caused a great change in precipitation distribution and many areas went from suffering droughts or floods caused by the La Niña episode to suffering the effects of opposite phenomena, as occurred in Brazil, where floods and landslides caused numerous victims and large economic losses, in addition to massive population displacements.

In it Caribbean, a tropical disturbance caused torrential rains in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, leaving at least 21 dead in the Dominican Republic, which recorded a record daily rainfall: 431.0.

Droughts across the continent

Besides, An intense drought, aggravated by heat waves, mainly affected much of Central America and Mexicowhich by the end of the year had suffered drought to some degree in 76% of its territory.

South America also suffered from widespread drought in its northern half as the year progressed and the El Niño episode took hold. Accumulated rainfall between June and September was much lower than average in much of the Amazon basin. In eight Brazilian states, rainfall from July to September was the lowest in more than 40 years. In the Amazon, the lowest level of the Negro River was recorded since observations began in 1902.

The study highlights the low water level in the Panama Canalwhich limited traffic in one of the most important maritime corridors on the continent.

The drought also devastated the subtropical zone of South America with a lack of water in the Plata basin, which particularly harmed Uruguay, northern Argentina and southern Brazil. In, which reduced water storage to critical levels. Uruguay, the summer of 2023 was the driest in the last 42 years.

Agriculture, food security and health

The WMO indicated that disasters and climate change damaged agriculture and food security in the region, dragging down 13.8 million people in a situation of acute food crisis, especially in Central America and the Caribbeanas in Ecuador and Peru, which also saw fishing reduced due to the increase in sea temperature.

Regarding health, the UN agency warns that exposure to heat waves, smoke from forest fires, sand dust and air pollution cause cardiovascular and respiratory problems while malnutrition is going up.

He extreme heat produced excess mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2000 and 2019 and the change in the distribution of rainfall expand the geographical reach of diseases such as malaria and dengue, whose cases have increased alarmingly in the region even in areas where their incidence was null.

Invest in meteorological services

The publication emphasizes the need to increase investments in meteorological services and national hydrological systems to improve forecasts and early warnings that save lives.

Currently, 47% of the countries in the region only provide basic meteorological services and only 6% offer these complete services or advanced.

The organization also urges expand climate services to improve health provisions facing extreme events. So far, only 38% of countries in the region provide climate services adapted to the health sector.