THE AMAZONIAN DRYING

The historic drought in the Amazon indicates that the rain forest is approaching an irreversible tipping point. The results would be disastrous for the world

- ROHINI KRISHNAMURTHY

ON OCTOBER 17, officials at Brazil’s Port of Manaus repeated what they have been doing every day since September 1902—they measured the water level of the Negro, one of the world’s voluminous rivers and the largest tributary of the mighty Amazon. The reading was alarming: at 13.49 metres, the Negro was flowing at its lowest in 121 years. Over the next 10 days, the water level of the Negro dipped further to 12.70 m, confirming that the Amazon river basin, which carries a fifth of the planet’s freshwater and is home to the largest rainforest, is in the grip of a historic drought.

Nobody expected such a severe drought following the record-breaking flood in 2021, when the Negro was flowing at the highest 30.02 m at the port. Its water level has now dipped by 17.3 m, the height of a five-storey building, says Jochen Schöngart of Brazil’s National Institute for Amazon Research, a public institution devoted to the study of the Amazon region.