Chilling warning from the capital
2019 has been a remarkable year of extremes for India. As things stand today, northern states are in the grip of one of the coldest seasons. The national capital Delhi has been colder than hill stations like Shimla and Mussoorie. The dense fog cover just refuses to lift, leaving scores of flights and trains cancelled and diverted. It has probably never been this bad in 100 years.
And it is not just the winter. The country faced one of the harshest summers in decades, while the monsoon season was just dreary. And in the heat of May, India saw one of the deadliest cyclones, Fani, rip through the eastern state of Odisha, something that was unheard of in over a century. Going into the finer details, the year saw the formation of 11 cyclonic systems—which was also a record of sorts. What was alarming was the change in pattern. As the Indian Ocean remained active, the Arabian Sea reported more storms than the Bay of Bengal, which is historically known to generate more such weather events. Despite the prediction of a normal rainy season, over a dozen states faced the havoc of floods as the Southwest monsoon was hyperactive. Again, the forecast for winter said it was going to be warmer than normal but it has been spine-chilling. And it is not finished yet.
To say that climate change is real and happening would be an understatement. And how is it affecting the country? The cold-wave death toll has outnumbered the casualties due to sunstroke in India in the last decade. India Meteorological Department, the country’s premier weather forecaster, has been struggling with accuracy as people suffer, lives are lost, crops are ravaged and economic activity as a whole takes a hit. Delhi, for example, has long been at the mercy of smog, followed by bone-chilling winter, but there has been no real effort to understand why. How long before the Centre takes cognisance of the crisis? There is no simple way out of this: Climate change must find top priority before the crisis spirals out of control. Let 2019 serve as a chilling reminder.