Amazon lakes became ‘simmering basins’ as temperatures spiked to 105 degrees

Boats and houseboats stranded in Lake Tefé in the Brazilian Amazon, which was severely affected by drought, on October 3, 2023. Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Lakes in the Amazon became hotter than the maximum temperature recommended for hot tubs as unprecedented heat and drought in 2023 turned them into “shallow, simmering basins,” according to a new study — and it proved a death sentence for endangered dolphins.

The world’s lakes are considered sentinels of climate change and are warming dramatically as global temperatures rise . Research, however, has tended to focus on temperate lakes rather than those in the tropics, despite their huge vulnerability to intense warming.

Scientists in Brazil are trying to fill some of these gaps. They used satellite data to analyze 10 Amazon lakes durin