Map of South America showing the change in the number of days of simultaneous heat, dryness, and fire risk between the periods 1971–2000 and 2001–2022. This is Fig 1a from the published paper.

South America has been hit by a series of heatwaves since last year. "We never had winter," said Karla Longo, an air quality researcher at Inpe, of the weather in Sao Paulo in recent months.

A heat dome that baked parts of South America in late September was made much more likely and at least 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter by climate change ...