Severe Drought in the Amazon

[Disinfo Agent]

A worsening drought in the Amazon basin has prompted Brazil to extend an emergency across the Amazonas state.
Brazil's military has been distributing supplies and medicine to tens of thousands of people stranded by the dramatic drop in water levels.

Witnesses say rivers and lakes have dried up completely, leaving behind kilometres of sand and mud.source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4344310.stm)

[genebujold]

Interesting! I flew around the Amazon basin between 1994 and 1996. Humid. Very wet. Never in a million years would I have though it would be the subject of drought.

[Disinfo Agent]

Some pictures here. (http://www.greenpeace.org.br/amazonia/galeria/)

[Melusine]

They are fighting some serious fires in western Brazil, too, as a result of the drought and people idiotically starting fires:


“The forests have become a tinderbox into which people are tossing lighted matches.” Those blunt words are ecologist Foster Brown’s description of the ongoing drought and fire emergency occurring around Rio Branco, a city in the state of Acre in western Brazil. The city is surrounded by farm and ranchland, which is surrounded by the Amazon Rainforest.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Acre/

[Argos]

The rain has already started. This is not unusual. This year the intertropical convergence zone has stalled in the northern hemisphere for longer than it should.