(p. A5) Lack of rainfall that caused severe drought in Argentina and Uruguay last year was not made more likely by climate change, scientists said Thursday [Feb. 16, 2023]. But global warming was a factor in extreme heat experienced in both countries that made the drought worse, they said.
The researchers, part of a loose-knit group called World Weather Attribution that studies recent extreme weather for signs of the influence of climate change, said that the rainfall shortage was a result of natural climate variability.
Specifically, they said, the presence of La Niña, a climate pattern linked to below-normal sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific that influences weather around the world, most likely affected precipitation.
. . .
Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London who co-founded the group, said that the new research shows “that not every bad thing that is happening now is happening because of climate change.”
“It’s important to show what the realistic impacts of climate change are,” she said.
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(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 16, 2023, and has the title “Scientists Wondered if Warming Caused Argentina’s Drought. The Answer: No.”)