The early and prolonged heat affected millions of people across Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Across the heat-affected countries, large wildfires are raging. At least 36 fires have been detected in Bolivia (País ED, 2023), 20 in Paraguay (ABC, 2023), and several more throughout Brazil, including in Bahia (The San Diego Union Tribune, 2023; CNN, 2023), Pantanal (O Globo, 2023), and the Amazon (France24, 2023).
Using published peer-reviewed methods, scientists from Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, United States of America and the United Kingdom, collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of 10-day maximum temperatures during the months August- September in the region most affected by the extreme heat (fig 1).