Winter vanishes, heat scorches the Andes as climate change meets El Nino

By James Attwood
 

Extreme heat scorching the Northern Hemisphere from California to China is also on show in the south, where parts of Chile and Argentina have seen temperatures soar in the depths of their winter. 
 

In Santiago, the thermometer hit 24C degrees (75F) Wednesday, far above the 16-17C average top for this time of year. The situation is even more extreme to the north where the town of Vicuna reached a near-record 38.3C on Tuesday. It’s a similar scenario on the other side of the Andes, where Buenos Aires registered its hottest Aug. 1 in 117 years of data. 

Temperatures have soared due to a combination of climate change and El Niño, posing a threat to the snowpack high up in the Andes mountains that many Chilean farms and cities depend on in the long dry summer months. An unusually warm winter also means Argentina is facing a natural gas glut as heating demands tumble.

“What to do?” Chilean Environment Minister Maisa Rojas, who is also a physicist and climatologist, said in a series of Twitter posts. “We know the solution: stop burning fossil fuels urgently!”

To be sure, given the winter heat is partly to do with El Niño, when that climate pattern subsides, the world weather situation should stop being so extreme, Rojas said.