Why is Argentina facing a heatwave like no other in its history?

Argentina is grappling with record-breaking temperatures.

Crops are dying in the fields while residents and tourists are attempting to stay cool and seek refuge from the heat.

Let’s take a closer look:

What is happening?

The three months from November to the end of January were the warmest such period since 1961, according to the weather service.

In February, Argentina issued health warnings in several provinces under the worst heat wave in decades, with temperatures close to 40 Celsius.

This month has been no different.

The capital of Buenos Aires has hit the 38 degrees Celsius mark – breaking a record previously set in 1952.

Some towns and cities have posted temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius with Nueve de Julio and Ezeiza breaking records for the month.

According to CNN, the early days of March recorded temperatures 8 to 10 degrees Celsius higher than normal in east central Argentina.

Climatologist Maximiliano Herrara told CNN, “There is nothing similar that has ever happened in climatic history in Argentina at this scale.”

Why is this happening?

Two words – La Nina.

The cooling of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide temporarily has lasted much longer than normal this time.

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Argentina’s summer usually runs from December to February.

“The length – five months – and intensity of this endless, brutal heat went beyond what I had imagined,” Herrara told CNN.

But others point to the role of climate change in making matters worse.

A group of scientists in December published a study saying climate change made the record-breaking early season heat in Argentina and Paraguay 60 times more likely.

The study is yet to be peer-reviewed.

While occasional heat waves are normal, climate change has made them “more persistent and more intense,” even in Argentina’s mountainous Patagonia region, meteorologist Enzo Campetella told AFP last month.

La Nina is also causing a drought in the entire region since 2019.

Central Argentina in 2022 witnessed the driest year since 1960 as well as widespread crop failures.

The country’s key soybean, corn and wheat crops have been battered.

This has led the world’s top exporter of soy oil and meal and the No. 3 for corn to make sharp cuts in harvest forecasts.

Experts say high temperature and heat waves have exacerbated the impact on harvests.

Officials estimate the crop losses to be in the billions of dollars.

Here too climate change has a role to play.

In February, scientists said extreme high temperatures in Argentina linked to climate change exacerbated the impact of the historic drought.

Scientists affiliated with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said that a rapid analysis showed climate change did not reduce rainfall directly, but that high temperatures likely reduced water availability and worsened the impacts of drought.

“Higher temperatures in the region in late 2022, which have been attributed to climate change, decreased water availability in the models," the WWA said.

“(This indicates) climate change probably reduced water availability over this period, increasing agricultural drought, although the study could not quantify this effect.”

Meanwhile, fires have devoured some 14,800 acres of forests in the northern Corrientes province in just days, officials reported Tuesday.

Three fires continued to threaten while two others were burning but under control, according to the emergency command center of Corrientes.

No injuries have been reported and the fires have not spread to populated areas, with rains expected Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, with the South American country facing heat wave after heat wave, fires have destroyed more than 100,000 hectares in Corrientes, according to the INTA agricultural technology institute.

Residents and tourists in Buenos Aires tried to shield themselves from the sun and drink lots of water. Many stayed inside or looked for other ways to stay cool.

“You can’t walk around, it’s too humid here. It’s tough,” said resident Gabriel Suarez.

“Well, you have to take some three showers a day, drink a lot of water, and avoid alcohol, unfortunately,” said Ande Wanderer, a US tourist traveling in Argentina using a shirt to shade her head from the sun.

“I’m wearing this because as I am a redhead, I have to cover my head or else I’m going to get skin cancer later.”

Argentina loses power

On Wednesday large swathes of Argentina were left without power, or air conditioning, after a blackout in the national grid due to a fire, officials said, as the heat wave has increased electricity demand.

In the capital, the lights flickered back on at about 6:00 pm (2100 GMT) in the metro system, and public services were gradually restored.

Reports of the first outages came in from 4:00-5:00 pm, with traffic lights out of order and Buenos Aires metro stations in total darkness.

Argentina’s undersecretary for energy Santiago Yanotti told the C5N network that power demand had soared due to the high temperatures. In Buenos Aires, it was 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.

The power cut is believed to have been caused by a fire in a field near high-tension lines connected to the Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, Yanotti said.

The plant was taken offline as a safety precaution, sparking the widespread problems nationwide, the country’s national nuclear power authority Nucleoelectrica said.

There was no immediate official data on the numbers of households affected, but a government source told AFP that Cordoba, Santa Fe and Mendoza provinces along with Buenos Aires experienced outages.

With inputs from agencies

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