2023-09-24 00:31:48
So far this year, the climate phenomenon known as “El Niño” caused at least five precipitation events over the mountain zone of the provinces of San Juan, Mendoza and Neuquénthe latter affected by an extensive drought which already exceeds the decade of extension.
This is revealed by a report from National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) together with the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (Ianigla-Conicet), in which it was considered that the recent rains and snowfalls meant «a relief from a string of dry years in that region«.
In the document, the researchers indicated that “El Niño” has already begun “to give signals«and that since the beginning of September «precipitation was recorded in some regions of the country, while a global change was observed in the trajectories of other climatic phenomena, like atmospheric rivers and cyclones«, they needed.
Los atmospheric rivershe explained Maximiliano Vialemember of the Ianigla-Conicet Mendoza, “they are long and narrow corridors of strong transport of water vapor in the atmosphere, rivers of water in a gaseous state in the atmosphere.”
A phenomenon of this type was the one that affected, last week, to the mountain region of Río Negrowhere it caused landslides on the roads and the flooding of most of the water courses in the area, leaving dozens of residents isolated.
In this panorama, the report released this Saturday detailed that so far in 2023 already “at least five precipitation events occurred in the north of Neuquén and Mendoza«, associated with atmospheric rivers.
In this way, the intense rains driven by El Niño «are putting an end to a string of dry years in the north of Neuquén and Mendoza»assured the INTA agrometeorological observer, Gastón Moyano.
El Niño has already alleviated the drought in the Neuquén Mountain Range: what happens to the rivers
On the other hand, the study indicated that the snow accumulated during the fall and winter of this year, marked by the beginning of El Niño, It is important for the upper Colorado River basinwhich supplies water to the provinces of Mendoza, Neuquén, Río Negro, La Pampa and Buenos Aires.
“The first gauging station of the Colorado River, Buta Ranquil (Neuquén), recorded 13 consecutive years of water deficit with a drop of up to 60% in water supply,” said the INTA researcher 25 de Mayo (La Pampa), Carolina Aumassanne to the Télam agency.
In that sense, he celebrated the arrival of atmospheric rivers to the mountain range for their positive impact on the Colorado basin by detailing that “so far this year, intense snowfalls were recorded in July and August that reached total snow coverage values between 65 and 80% of the upper Colorado River basin.
Source: Télam
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