Over 84% of Indian districts are prone to extreme heat waves and most of India’s districts have been recording extremely humid heat even during the monsoon months of June, July, and September, a report titled “Managing Monsoons in a Warming Climate” released on Tuesday ahead of the NYC (New York City) Climate Week in September has said. As many as 70% of the districts facing extreme heat also faced increased frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall.
The IPE Global (international development consulting group) and Esri India (geographic information systems solutions provider) report said the frequency, intensity, and unpredictability of extreme heat and rainfall events have risen in recent decades.
There was a 15-fold increase in extreme heat wave days across the March-April-May (MAM) and June-July-August-September (JJAS) months in the last three decades in India. The country has faced a 19-fold increase in extreme heat wave days in the last decade, found the study based on climate modelling and observed data from the Indian Space Research Organisation, India Meteorological Department, and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
IPE Global said the study found India was witnessing extended summer-like conditions except on non-rainy days in monsoons. Abinash Mohanty, IPE Global climate change and sustainability practice head who authored the study, said the current trend of catastrophic extreme heat and rainfall events is a result of a 0.6°C temperature rise in the last century. “El Nino [associated with ocean surface warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean] is gaining momentum and making its early presence felt across the globe with India facing the extreme events of turbulence more in patterns than waves,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Mohanty cited Kerala landslides triggered by incessant and erratic rainfall episodes. He added the cities getting paralysed with sudden and abrupt downpours is a testament that the climate is changing. “Our analysis suggests that 8 out of 10 Indians will be highly exposed to extreme events by 2036 and these numbers speak volumes.”
Mohanty said embracing hyper-granular risk assessments and establishing climate-risk observatories should become a national imperative to safeguard Indian agriculture, industry, and large-scale infrastructural projects from climate change.
The report said India is witnessing an extended summer-like condition in the JJAS months. “…districts located in the plains and hilly regions are witnessing these trends which have deterrent impacts on lives, livelihoods, and economic sectors. These trends align with findings from various studies that show that land surface temperatures across India have been rising,” said the report.
The land sensitivity assessment conducted for the report found that over 55% of land use and land cover change in India is concentrated in hotspot districts. The report said that anthropocentric activities are contributing to this large-scale change in climatic patterns. Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Manipur were some of the hotspot states facing both extreme heatwaves and erratic incessant rainfall events.
In October, November, and December, over 62% of heatwave-prone Indian districts have been facing erratic and incessant rainfall. The increase in atmospheric temperatures and humidity increases the likelihood of heatwaves globally, especially in tropical regions.
The report recommended establishing a heat risk observatory to help identify, assess, and project chronic and acute heat risks at a hyper-granular level to better prepare against heat-related extremities such as urban heat islands, water stress, vector-borne diseases, crop loss, etc, and devising risk financing instruments to mitigate heat risk and extreme rainfall events.
