{"id":35308,"date":"2023-05-11T05:56:50","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T00:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35308"},"modified":"2025-04-20T23:38:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T18:08:37","slug":"global-warming-why-is-india-heating-up-slower-than-the-world-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/global-warming-why-is-india-heating-up-slower-than-the-world-average\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Warming: Why is India Heating Up Slower Than the World Average?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Background<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Why is Warming Over India Lower?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Polar Regions are Warming Faster Than Tropical Regions<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Reasons for Faster Warming of Polar Regions?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The annual mean temperature of the world is known to have <strong>increased by 1.1 degree Celsius<\/strong> from the average of the 1850-1900 period. But this increase, as can be expected, is not uniform.<\/li>\n<li>It varies in different regions and also at different times of the year.<\/li>\n<li>This single number denoting global temperature increase, very effective for communicating the dangers of climate change, is built on top of several layers of averages.\n<ul>\n<li>For example, temperature rise over land is much higher than over oceans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The warming trends over the Indian region are very different.<\/li>\n<li>An assessment of climate change over the Indian subcontinent, published by the Ministry of Earth Sciences in 2020, said <strong><u>annual mean temperatures had risen by 0.7 degree Celsius from 1900<\/u><\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>This is significantly lower than the 1.59 degree Celsius rise for land temperatures across the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It could give the impression that the problem of climate change over India was not as acute as other parts of the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why is Warming Over India Lower?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The relatively lower rise in temperatures over India is not a surprise. Also, India is not a special case.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong><u>increase in temperatures is known to be more prominent in the higher altitudes, near the polar regions, than near the equator<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This is attributable to a complex set of atmospheric phenomena, including <strong><u>heat transfers from the tropics to the poles through prevailing systems of air circulation<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Geographically, India is located in the tropical region, quite close to the equator.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/05\/13\/image-20230513154924-1.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/05\/13\/image-20230513154924-2.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: India\u2019s Mean Max Temp. Image Caption: India\u2019s Mean Min Temp.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Impact of Aerosols \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Aerosols refer to all kinds of particles suspended in the atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li>These particles have the potential to affect the local temperature in multiple ways.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Many of these scatter sunlight back, so that lesser heat is absorbed by the land<\/u><\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Aerosols also affect cloud formation. Clouds, in turn, have an impact on how much sunlight is reflected or absorbed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Aerosol concentration over the Indian region is quite high<\/u><\/strong>, due to natural as well as man-made reasons.<\/li>\n<li>Due to its location in the tropics and the arid climate, India is no stranger to dust.<\/li>\n<li>But it also happens to be experiencing heavy pollution right now.<\/li>\n<li>Emissions from vehicles, industries, construction, and other activities add a lot of aerosols in the Indian region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>A <strong><u>reduction in warming could be an unintended but positive side-effect<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Polar Regions are Warming Faster Than Tropical Regions<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/05\/13\/image-20230513154924-3.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Warming of Earth Map<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The planet as a whole has warmed by 1.1 degree Celsius compared with preindustrial times.<\/li>\n<li>But, as mentioned earlier, this is just the average. Different regions have seen very different levels of warming.<\/li>\n<li>The polar regions, particularly the <strong>Arctic<\/strong>, have seen significantly greater warming.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong><u>IPCC report says the Arctic region has warmed at least twice as much as the world average<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Its current annual mean temperatures are about 2 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Reasons for Faster Warming of Polar Regions?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As mentioned earlier, heat transfers from the tropics to the poles through prevailing systems of air circulation, leading to warming of polar regions faster.<\/li>\n<li>Another prominent cause is what is known as the <strong>Albedo Effect<\/strong> \u2013\n<ul>\n<li>Albedo is an expression of the ability of surfaces to reflect sunlight (heat from the sun).<\/li>\n<li>Light-coloured surfaces, such as ice, return a large part of the sunrays back to the atmosphere (high albedo).<\/li>\n<li>Dark surfaces absorb the rays from the sun (low albedo).<\/li>\n<li>The ice cover in the Arctic is melting, because of which more land or water is getting exposed to the Sun.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Other reasons for faster warming of polar regions are <strong><u>changes in clouds, water vapour and atmospheric temperatures<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are Trade Winds?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The trade winds or easterlies are the permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth&#8217;s equatorial region.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What are Greenhouse Gases?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A greenhouse gas is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy at thermal infrared wavelengths, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth&#8217;s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-climate\/climate-change-why-india-is-heating-up-slower-than-the-world-average-8602414\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Global warming: Why India is heating up slower than the world average<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth&#8217;s surface observed since the pre-industrial period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}