South America is burning. Climate scientists who have seen this coming for decades

South America is experiencing its worst forest fire season in nearly two decades, with millions of acres burning across several countries. The blazes come amid the region’s worst drought on record, and are no surprise to climate scientists who have seen this coming for decades.

Satellite data analyzed by Brazil’s space research agency Inpe identified a record-breaking 346,112 fire hotspots so far this year in the 13 countries of South America. All that smoke is so thoroughly choking large swaths of the continent that NASA satellites captured the plumes from 1 million miles away.

In Brazil, the continent’s largest country, about 59 percent of the country is facing drought conditions — an area roughly half the size of the United States — and Amazon basin rivers are flowing at historic lows. Three of the six vast ecosystems that define…