Latin America & The Caribbean Weekly Situation Update (28 February - 6 March 2022) As of 7 March 2022

KEY FIGURES

1M HECTARES BURNED BY FIRES IN ARGENTINA LINKED TO HISTORIC DROUGHT

REGIONAL: CLIMATE RISK

Per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), global warming’s effect on the intensity and frequency of extreme weather phenomenon such as El Niño and La Niña is also making resulting events more difficult to predict and causing additional damage.
IPCC also expresses concern with how changes in timing and scale of rains, together with extreme temperatures, are affecting agricultural production in Central and South America.
These concerns are currently evident in South America. A historic drought linked to La Niña in Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands in the northern province of Corrientes, where the nearby Paraná River is experiencing its lowest water levels in 80 years, resulted in raging wildfires since January 2022 that have burned nearly a million hectares (an area roughly the size of Puerto Rico). The deadly flooding and landslides that have plagued south-eastern Brazil so far in 2022 come after their worst drought in nine decades.