Extreme Temperature Diary- Monday January 29, 2024/ Main Topic: Focusing on Columbia as South America’s Climate Crisis Driven Drought Deepens

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The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: Focusing on Columbia as South America’s Climate Crisis Driven Drought Deepens

Dear Diary. Over the last few years, I’ve highlighted for our main topic of the day many articles concerning Brazil, the Amazon Rainforest, and Argentina, but not so much the northern portion of South America. The historic climate change related drought affecting the Amazin is far reaching and apparently producing destructive wildfires in Columbia. Record heat has encompassed all of Central America and most of South America recently:

This is the first time on this blog that I have highlighted Columbia. Typically, this country is a tropical paradise benefitting from generous rainfall. Record heat due to a combination of climate change and the current strong El Niño has dried out just about every corner of South America including Columbia. Today’s 500 millibar anomaly chart depicts more of the same with above average heights sprawling across most of the continent. A strong heat dome extends northward into Columbia and Venezuela:

So how bad has the situation in Columbia gotten? Here is an AP article with details:

Colombia declares a disaster because of wildfires and asks for international help | AP News

Colombia declares a disaster because of wildfires and asks for international help

The sun rises in a forest fire at El Cambell Hill in Bogota, Columbia, Thursday, January 25th (A.P. Photo/Fernando Varga)

Updated 1:30 PM EST, January 25, 2024

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s government declared a disaster Thursday and asked for international help to combat raging wildfires that are expected to worsen in coming days due to warm, dry conditions associated with the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Officials raised the number of fires from 25 to 31, and said nine of them were under control. They did not order mandatory evacuations despite some fires burning in the mountains that surround some municipalities.

President Gustavo Petro said Chile, the United States, Peru and Canada have already responded to the call for help, without specifying when the assistance will arrive to the South American country.

The government also asked for aid from the United Nations and European Union.

“To the extent that we know that in the coming days and weeks crisis events are going to increase, we want to make sure that we have the physical capacity to address and mitigate them,” Petro said.

Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies reported that roughly half of the country’s municipalities are on maximum alert due to fire risk. But about a third of all municipalities do not have a fire department, according to the National Fire Department of Colombia.

The decreasing rainfall and increasing temperatures that are worsening the fire situation are attributed to El Nino, which is a temporary warming of parts of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide.

The disaster declaration allows the government to reallocate funds to tackle the wildfires.

The army has deployed more than 600 soldiers as well as aircraft and vehicles to emergency areas.

Meanwhile, police are using planes authorized to spray chemicals on coca leaf crops to transport and drop water over the fires, including over those that broke out in a mountain range that surrounds Bogota, the capital.

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is more new December 2023 climatology:

Here is More Climate News from Monday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

More from the Weather Department:

Today’s News on Sustainable Energy, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

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