ARGENTINA: CLIMATE CHANGE

CLIMATE CHANGE: ALSO IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Infernal heat, blockouts, droughts, fearsome electric storms, hit both Australia and Argentina. While in the Northern Hemisphere the globe is freezing with unusual low temperatures and ice storms, the Southern Hemisphere is scorching with prolonged heat waves. Can it be possible that science has been right predicting these situations all along due to climate change? Instead, others claim that it is just a matter of natural cycles.

ARGENTINA. DEVILISH WEEKEND: THERMAL SENSATION CLIMBED TO 42ºC. (La Nación, Jan. 19, 2014)

Image: www.losandes.com.ar 

Thermal sensation reached 42.3ºC; Today there will possibly come some slight relief. Thunderstorms are forecasted and the maxmum teperature would reach 32ºC; orange alert is maintained. As it was forecasted, yesterday the city was a furnace. With completely clear skies “porteños” supported a temperature of 38.4ºC and a thermal sensation of 42.3ºC at 1 pm in what it was the third cosecutive days of the heat wave. (By Laura Rocha  | LA NACION, Jan.19, 2014). But the heat wave had started during the Hoydays and, with ups and downs, it still continues with little relief in sight.

 

Blackouts continue. After two days of intense heat some city suburbs and surroundings continued suffering blackouts. Two days with temeperatures close to 40ºC were enough to bring back the electric failures. As a consequence of a record demand of electric consumption, the problems affected once again the neighbors that since December have been suffering interruption of their electric service. (LA NACIÓN, Edición impresa, Jan.19, 2014).

 

Severe electric storms: other two lightnings hit the city of Mar del Plata harming seven people. Fear in the beaches nine days after the Villa Gesell tragedy in which a lightning killed four and harmed many. The harmed people received the lightning’s expansion wave whern they were hurriedly fleeing the coast in Alfar Beach.  A similar event occured during an extreme hot day, when a lightning hit a telephone pole in Waikiki Beach. (By Darío Palavecino  | LA NACION, Jan.19, 2014)

 

Also in Brazil:

Image: EFE/La Nación

 

RIO DE JANEIRO (EFE): A lightning damaged a finger of the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio de Janeiro. The tip of the right hand of the statue, one of Brazil’s world’s most famous touristic spots, was broken by an electric storm that affected the whole state during the night. (LA NACIÓN, Jan.17, 2014)

 

Comment of the Blog’s Editor:

In this Blog’s note about Australia’s hot weather problems the grave consequences for that part of the Southern Hemisphere were mentioned. The same situations are occurring, with more or less intensity, in Argtentina, the other southern neighbor of the Southern Hemisphere. Besides, the opposite situation in term of temperatures is being experienced in the Northern Hemisphere. Scientists have been forecasting these phenomena, attributing them to climate change. On the other hand, those that deny the gravity of the climate change say that this type of events have been occuring more or less frequently due to the natural weather cycles. Who is right? It seems, though, that the time has come to meditate seriously about sicence predictions because they may be forewarning grave consequences for Humans..