Rising Weather Uncertainties in India
26-08-2023
12:28 PM
1 min read
What’s in today’s article?
- Why in News?
- Rainfall in May and Future Projections
- What are the Global Trends?
- How much is India Warming up?
- What about the Different States in India?
- Impact of Warming
Why in News?
- The first two days of May have been abnormally rainy almost in entire India, with some areas in Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP and MP getting as much as 10 to 15 times the expected rainfall.
- According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), this exceptional spell of rainfall was the result of a number of relatively local weather phenomena over different parts of the country coming together at the same time.
Rainfall in May and Future Projections:
- Except the northeastern states, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, the entire country has received plenty of rain.
- The unusual rainfall is a reminder of the increasing uncertainties in weather patterns becoming evident not just in India but across the world.
- Despite the recent showers, this year is widely expected to be hotter and drier.
- Though the IMD has forecast a normal monsoon, with the forecasts of the development of El Nino monsoon rainfall over India is likely to be suppressed.
What are the Global Trends?
- Globally, the month of March this year was the second warmest March ever since the beginning of records in the mid-1800s.
- According to an analysis, the year 2023 was shaping up to become one of the top four warmest years on record, and the rapid development of the El Nino event has an overall warming impact on the planet.
How much is India Warming up?
- The increase in temperatures is being experienced in India too, though at a slightly lower level than the global average.
- For example, the year 2022 was 1.15 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times and was the fifth or sixth warmest year on record.
- The warming over the seas around India has been much higher. Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Indian Ocean have risen by almost 1 degree Celsius between 1950 and 2015.
- By the end of the century, the warming over India is likely to be in the range of 2.4 to 4.4 degree Celsius from the current levels in different emission scenarios.
What about the Different States in India?
- The IMD recently released state-level warming trends for the first time, which highlighted that the warming over India is not uniform across regions.
- Temperatures in Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Kerala had increased at the rate of more than 1 degree Celsius per 100 years in the last 120 years.
- Most of the northeastern states - Mizoram, Assam, Sikkim, Manipur, Tripura - have seen their temperatures climb at the rate of more than 0.7 degree Celsius per 100 years.
- However, the eastern states of Bihar (0.02 degree Celsius), Jharkhand, and Odisha and UP (0.13 degree Celsius) have experienced the least warming.
Impact of Warming:
- The year 2022:
- Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab saw the maximum rise in temperatures in 2022, compared to their normal.
- It was the warmest year on record for Sikkim, while it was the second warmest for Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Punjab.
- Interestingly, at least two states - Karnataka and Telangana - were cooler than normal in 2022.
- Annual rainfall:
- Goa has seen the maximum increasing trend in annual rainfall followed by Gujarat and Tripura.
- Rainfall has decreased in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Manipur.
- Extreme weather events:
- For the first time, the IMD also presented data on deaths caused by extreme weather events. While heat waves have attracted a lot of attention, lightning strikes have been killing a far greater number of people in India.
- More than 60% of deaths caused by weather events in India in 2022 (1,608 out of 2,657 recorded deaths) were due to lightning strikes.
- Floods and extreme rainfall events claimed 937 lives.
- For the first time, the IMD also presented data on deaths caused by extreme weather events. While heat waves have attracted a lot of attention, lightning strikes have been killing a far greater number of people in India.
Q1) What is lightning and how does it occur?
Lightning is a rapid and massive electrical discharge that takes place between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Scientists believe that for lightning to occur, positive and negative charges must separate within a cloud.
Q2) What is El Nino?
The term El Niño (Spanish for 'the Christ Child') refers to a warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures, in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
Source: Why the recent rain is no relief