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.

  • cecilkorik@piefed.ca
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    4 months ago

    Scientists have been telling anyone who would listen, for decades, in the most dire terms, of what was going to happen and how badly it’s going to happen and everyone was like “nah they don’t know for sure and they’re exaggerating and being ridiculous” and yet the same people are still going to have the utter gall to act completely surprised pikachu face when it starts actually happening and try to convince us that no one could’ve possibly predicted this.

    except the scientists. who predicted this.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        They actually did a follow-up episode about Al Gore being right, and everyone had to apologize to him!

        I don’t know how often they admit that they were wrong, but I thought that was big of them

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      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.