Brazil is going through intense climate issues in 2024. Devastating rains in the Southern Region caused the biggest tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul with floods that destroyed part of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul and its surroundings.
In the Pantanal, the drought in the region is driving fires, worst record for the first half of the year since 1988, when Inpe began measuring using satellites.
But these events are not exclusive to the present. In 1941, there was a flood caused by heavy rains that also flooded the city of Porto Alegre, while in the Pantanal, the Paraguay River, the main river in the biome, was going through a period of drought. Both events are related.
“The rain phenomenon in question [1941] was similar to that of 2024, where a high pressure system in the central-west and southeast blocked the cold front coming from the Pacific and the Andes, causing intense rains in the south of the country, although less than in 2024”, says Carlos Nobre, climatologist and BNDES advisor.
Human action increases the chances of more climate tragedies.”These climate phenomena have always happened, but with human activity and the warming of the planet, these events will occur more frequently, with the possibility of breaking more records ”, concludes Nobre.
The Pantanal faced a major water crisis in the 1960s, but before that there was a period of drought at the end of the 1930s. It is not possible to determine how this drought influenced the rate of fires, as there was measurement.
From January 1 to June 23, 3,262 fire outbreaks were detected in the Pantanal, an increase of more than 22 times compared to the same period in the previous year.
The dry season is just beginning and the largest number of fires tends to occur between August and October, with a peak in September.
Even so, the Pantanal had more fires than in 2020, when 2,534 fires were recorded in the same period. That year, fires consumed a third of the biome’s area, resulting in the deaths of more than 17 million vertebrate animals.
The Pantanal region is occupied by livestock farms that use fire management to make new pastures viable. “In the Pantanal, the strong point is livestock farming, there are at least more than two centuries of records of activity there and fire is a management technique to clear the pasture”, says Carlos Padovani, a researcher at Embrapa Pantanal.
Government actions
The government of Mato Grosso do Sul promoted a press conference, this Thursday (27), to combat misinformation, with the participation of members of the federal government.
“We are in a severe situation, considered ‘rare’ by Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) because we were living through a process that only happened in 1941. All the conditions at this moment are worse than those of 2020, but we have not yet reached the point critical, scheduled to take place in August and September”, concluded Jaime Verruck, Secretary of State for Environment, Development, Science, Technology and Innovation.
The practice of “controlled burning” for management, whether for pasture or any crop, in areas of the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal is prohibited and will be criminalized, at least until the last months of the year, according to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
The ministry’s minister, Marina Silva, was in the state of Mato Grosso dos Sul last Friday (28) to hold a press conference on operations against fires there. The event was also attended by Simone Tebet, minister of Planning and Budget.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
