A new study has crunched decades of IMD data to observe patterns of warming and some cooling across India’s landscape.
The focus of the study was on the impact of climate change on agriculture.
What is the key finding of the study?
Surface temperature data across India over the past 7 decades has found “a consistent pattern of warming” over the north-western and southern parts.
An unmistakable rapid rise, particularly since 1980, has been observed over - winter, pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon period depictions.
The decade mean maximum surface temperatures over India in the pre-monsoon months in 1950s showed limited areas with values as high as 40°C.
But in 2010s, area with values exceeding 40°C had expanded to the majority of the Indian peninsula, with peak values in south-central India reaching 42°C.
Anomaly - The zone anchored over north-east that extends south-westward across central India saw a pattern of cooling during this period.
These trends are explained by “the presence of a large region of anthropogenic brown haze over India and the adjacent ocean regions.
This haze is especially in the winter and spring and is composed of aerosols that absorb solar radiation, and reduce insolation at the Earth’s surface.
And what do the data suggest?
The researchers underline that India is more vulnerable to climate change because of the sheer size of its population and the stress on its land resources.
Notably, Indians account for about 17.5% of the world’s population, but has merely 2.5% of the world’s land and 4% of fresh water resources.
A mid-range projection of climate change for 2020-39 has indicated a reduction in crop yields of between 4.5% and 9%.
The only comforting aspect is that the primary rice and sorghum growing areas lie predominantly in the regions that aren’t seeing intense heating.
