When dolphins began washing up dead by the dozens on Lake Tefe in Brazil’s Amazonas state, hydrologist Ayan Fleischmann was sent to find out why.
What he and his colleagues discovered was startling: a brutal drought and extreme heat wave that began in September 2023 had transformed the lake into a steaming cauldron. The lake’s waters reached 41 degrees Celsius, or 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than most spa baths.
Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, spotlight the impacts of planetary warming on tropical regions and aquatic ecosystems, and come as the United Nations’ COP30 climate talks kick off in Brazil.
Propaganda has made it so a significant portion of the population takes it personal if anyone anywhere dares to even try to suggest that they might know better than them about something, even if they’re an expert on that thing. And as a response, they will do the exact opposite out of spite.