By The New York Times (World News) | Created at 2024-10-06 09:10:08 | Updated at 2024-10-06 11:21:02
2 hours ago
Americas|A Changing Climate Is Scorching the World’s Biggest River
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/world/americas/amazon-river-climate-change-brazil.html
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The world’s largest river is parched.
The Amazon River, battered by back-to-back droughts fueled by climate change, is drying up, with some stretches of the mighty waterway dwindling to shallow pools only a few feet deep.
Water levels along several sections of the Amazon River, which winds nearly 4,000 miles across South America, fell last month to their lowest level on record, according to figures from the Brazilian Geological Service.
In one stretch in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, the river was 25 feet below the average for this time of year, according to the agency, which began collecting data in 1967.
Parts of three of the Amazon River’s most important tributaries — major rivers in their own right, each spanning over 1,000 miles — have also fallen to historical lows.
The crisis has gridlocked the Amazon, a vital watery superhighway that serves as practically the only way to connect forest communities and move commerce around some of the most remote stretches on the planet.
Faced with a situation that shows no sign of abating, Brazil has resorted to an extraordinary measure that might have been unthinkable not too long ago: making the world’s largest river deeper.
