"While many people have pointed to El Nino to explain the South America heat wave, this analysis has shown that climate change is the primary driver of the heat," said Lincoln Muniz Alves, a researcher at the Brazil National Institute for Space Research who participated in the study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.
From Buenos Aires to Chile, and parts of Brazil, people found themselves in short sleeves in August and September as temperatures shot above 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), reaching 37 degrees in some cases, breaking records.
The WWA study found that while the El Nino warming phenomenon had some impact, climate change was the main culprit, driving temperatures up between 1.4 and 4.3 degrees.
Heat forces Spain's Canary Islands to suspend classes
Madrid (AFP) Oct 10, 2023 -
Spain's Canary Islands on Tuesday ordered the temporary closure of schools due to scorching temperatures on the archipelago that have set records and helped revive a huge wildfire on Tenerife.
The seven-island archipelago located in the Atlantic off the northwest coast of Africa typically experiences spring-like temperatures all year, but temperatures have recently soared to around 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts.
The mercury hit 38.5C in Adeje in the southwest of Tenerife on Monday, and 37.8C in Arucas in the north of the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria, according to Spain's meteorological agency AEMET.
With the heat forecast to continue, the archipelago's education minister, Poli Suarez, announced classes would be suspended on Wednesday and Friday. Thursday is a public holiday in Spain.
"We want to prioritise the safety of boys and girls at all school in the Canaries," he told reporters.
Local media said there had been several cases of students fainting or suffering heatstroke in recent days in the Canaries.
The high temperatures helped once again rekindle a wildfire in the northeast of Tenerife, which already ravaged around 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of woodland over the summer.
About 100 firefighters backed by nine water-dropping helicopters were battling the blaze, the regional government of the Canaries said in a statement.
The blaze first broke out in mid-August, and was declared under control on September 11, but was never fully put out. Small fires have continued to ignite periodically in the same area due to winds and the heat.
"High temperatures make extinguishing work difficult and new reactivations are possible," the head of the regional government of Tenerife, Rosa Davila, wrote on social network X, formerly called Twitter.
The high temperatures are expected to last until Sunday.
As global temperatures rise due to climate change, scientists have warned that heatwaves will become more frequent and more intense.
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