Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and lead author, United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Oceans and Cryosphere. He tells TNIE’s Richa Sharma in an interview that the root cause for the excess heat and increasing heatwaves in the Indo-Pak region is global warming due to human-made carbon emissions. Excerpts:
The temperature touched around 50 degree Celsius in April. What are the reasons for this?
Summers during April-May are generally hot in India as there are less clouds and more sunlight to warm up the land. Now, global warming is supplying additional heat as increased carbon emissions trap more of the sun’s heat. North-northwest India is looking at a 60-90% deficit in the rains during March to mid-May. This was accompanied by the sinking of dry air in the region, suppressing cloud activity and increasing the solar radiation, thereby accumulating excess heat.
The impact of extreme weather events is visible on our food security. What lies ahead?
The global commitment towards reducing emissions is insufficient to keep the temperatures from shooting up. Climate action and adaptation at local levels should go parallel with mitigation at global and national levels. Panchayats and communities can come forward to monitor and work towards adaptation measures.
We saw farmers across several states complaining about changes in crop yields. Are we prepared to handle it?
Forecasts and evacuation are working well in India. However, we cannot keep waiting for forecasts every year and keep on evacuating people every time. This will save lives, but not livelihoods. We need to identify the risk for each region. For example, the challenges at Mumbai would be totally different from that of Vishakhapatnam or Chennai. Disaster management and climate action should be tailored to the characteristics and climate change in each region.
What we see today is directly linked to climate change or other atmospheric conditions?
We are past the phase of asking if each of these extreme weather events is due to climate change and focus on mitigation and adaptation. The intensified heatwaves, cyclones, floods and droughts that we are experiencing are a result of that 1.1deg C of change in global average temperatures. There is no going back, since the carbon dioxide that we have emitted will stay in the air for hundreds to thousands of years. What we can do is stop it from worsening further.
While we talk about heat waves on land, marine heatwaves are a big cause for worry. How do they impact the monsoon systems?
Marine heatwaves are extremely high temperatures in the ocean that cause habitat destruction due to coral bleaching, and loss of kelp forests. We have a preliminary understanding that they affect the way cyclones and the monsoon behave. The marine heatwaves in the western Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal are found to result in dry conditions over the central Indian subcontinent. At the same time, there is a significant increase in rainfall over south peninsular India in response to the heatwaves in the north Bay of Bengal. These changes are in response to the modulation of the monsoon winds by heatwaves.
The heating of the Indian Ocean can have a big impact. What stands ahead for the country?
The recent climate change report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights that the Indian Ocean is warming at the fastest rate.
The rise in ocean surface temperatures has resulted in a 50% increase in intense cyclones and a three-fold rise in extreme rainfall events causing floods across India. By end of the century, if we do not cut down carbon emissions, it would affect the most vulnerable population in South Asia.
How can we take these issues to the people?
The media, particularly newspapers, have a large role in bringing climate change issues as well as solutions to both common people and politicians. I have seen media highlights of our research being discussed in Parliament. This is a good sign. We need to highlight the climate impacts on the poor and vulnerable, particularly women and children
What policy interventions can be made?
We have the climate action plan at a national level, and many states are now gearing towards implementing state action plans too. We need to frame policies at the local level too. Another concern is that most of the current climate action plans are based on past changes. Instead, these plans should be based on future changes. If we are building infrastructure and expanding agriculture along the coast and on the hills without preparing for future weather events, we are digging our own graves.