Pedestrians on footbridge installed this May in the city of Manaus, Brazil, after heavy rains caused the Negro River to overflow its banks. (Photo by Nelson Antoine/Shutterstock)
The Sixth Assessment Report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has spotlighted a series of trends likely to intensify across Latin America and the Caribbean in the coming years—among them climbing temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns and rising sea levels. In some parts of the region these changes are expected to be more pronounced than in the world as a whole. The forecasted climate shifts could mean more destructive storms and harsher droughts, receding coastlines and more frequent floods, as well as accelerated damage to the region’s rainforests—including the Amazon, which plays a role in regulating global temperatures. An increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to human activity drove up the average surface temperature by 1.1 degrees Celsius worldwide over the last decade compared to the 1850-1900 average, according to the report. “Mean temperatures have very likely increased in all subregions” of Central and South America... [Log in to read more]
