Heat wave due to climate crisis and El Niño put South American countries on alert

High temperatures and an intense drought typical of this time of year, aggravated by the El Niño phenomenon, have led the authorities of several South American countries to warn about the harmful health effects of exposure to the sun and the need to protect themselves from heat strokes.

“The high temperatures that many regions of the planet are currently experiencing are due to the confluence of two phenomena”, explains to EFE the doctor and climate change expert Camilo Prieto, professor of Sustainability and Environmental Health at the Javeriana University, in Bogotá.

According to Prieto, one of those phenomena “It is climate change, which is a background event that is characterized by being increasing, by being progressive.”, and the other is “Climate variability coinciding at this time with the El Niño phenomenon”.

“So, the superposition of the two events causes temperatures to rise in some areas of the planet and this fundamentally happens because in these months, which is January and February, we have a moment of high intensity expression of El Niño.”, which is expected to start “decrease in March-April”says Prieto.

In Colombia, where the rains of the last two days in parts of the Andean region have put out forest fires and softened temperatures, in several places temperatures have exceeded 38 degrees Celsius, while there are rivers and streams that have completely dried up, which compromises the supply of drinking water in part of the country.

“At the moment, 233 municipalities in 16 departments have a shortage of drinking water. Of these, 16 already have liquid rationing and there are 602 more susceptible to suffering damage.”warned the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD).

Thermometers in red in Argentina and Chile

Intense heat also hits Chile and Argentina, where thermometers mark record temperatures in many cases.

In the metropolitan region of Santiago de Chile, the thermometer marked 37.3 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the third highest temperature recorded in the last 55 years, the Chilean Meteorological Directorate (DMC) reported today.

The record temperature was only surpassed in 2017, the year in which the same station, in the Quinta Normal commune, a popular neighborhood in the center of Santiago, reached 37.4, and one degree below the historical maximum, the 38.3 degrees supported. in January 2018.

The highest temperature that Chile has recorded since records began is 42.2 degrees Celsius, which broke thermometers in 2017 in the Andean city of Los Angeles, in the center of the country.

In Argentina, the heat wave is felt especially in the western part of the country and also in the south of the province of Buenos Aires.

“From northern Patagonia to northern Argentina there will be maximum temperatures between 35 and 42 degrees Celsius and minimum temperatures between 22 and 26 degrees Celsius.“, sources from the National Meteorological Service (SMN) told EFE.

The heat wave, in general, is going to “persist at least until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week“, they added.

heat stroke

The SMN warned of “extreme temperatures” in 21 Argentine provinces, which can put people’s health at risk, while in Santiago, the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) put all its personnel on alert and launched a battery of advice to avoid heat stroke and the effects of long exposures.

“In South America, particularly Argentina and Chile, there is a risk of heat waves occurring.”, explains the expert from the Javeriana University.

According to Prieto, “Heat waves are an atmospheric phenomenon that when it reaches humans can be expressed as heat stroke. That is what our body suffers and it is a cardiovascular risk and also a risk for our nervous system, which can cause death.”.

The confluence of the climate crisis and El Niño also represents “a very relevant risk for the health of all ecosystems, which is evident from droughts, but also for human health“, emphasizes the specialist.

In that sense, Prieto indicates that another risk is “water stress, that is, due to the lower availability of fresh water“, which is what affects practically a quarter of Colombian municipalities, and is also “an increased risk of developing outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, diseases such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya”.

Regarding the rains that have fallen in the last three days in Colombia, Prieto points out that they are “sporadic” and “do not imply the rupture of the El Niño phenomenon”, which will continue to manifest for about two more months.