Bizarre weather in Amazon raises alarm

[marmar]

Reuters


CAAPIRANGA, Brazil (Reuters) – The river loops low past its bleached-white banks, where caimans bask in the fierce morning sun and stranded houseboats tilt precariously. Nearby sits a beached barge with its load of eight trucks and a crane. Its owners were caught out long ago by the speed of the river's decline.

This is what it looks like when the world's greatest rainforest is thirsty. If climate scientists are right, parched Amazon scenes like this will become more common in the coming decades, possibly threatening the survival of the forest and accelerating global warming.

The environmental and economic consequences could be huge -- for Brazil, for South America, for the planet.

An intense months-long drought through November drained the mighty Negro river -- a tributary of the Amazon -- to its lowest since records began in 1902, drying up the network of water that is the lifeblood of Brazil's huge Amazonas state. More than 60,000 people went short of food and many lacked clean drinking water as millions of dead fish contaminated rivers. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101129/ts_nm/us_amazon_drought

[Zoeisright]

1. Ahead of schedule.

This is only a small window into what's to come.

[hobbit709]

2. God meant for them to suffer, otherwise you are working for Satan

As in this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9654700

But there is no climate change, etc.
Sooner or later this planet will have had enough of us and cure the infestation. In the history of extinctions, we seem to be the first species that did it to ourselves.

[MadHound]

3. Weird weather around the world

My little neck corner of the world is going through a warm, dry autumn. Sucks for me, it means the apple trees in my orchard won't produce next year unless we have a lot more cold weather.