Come rain, snow or sunshine

As Republic Day approaches, I think of several parades on Rajpath which I have attended swathed in sweaters and walking through the morning mist to find our seats. The weather was an important factor to be considered in the decision to go to and see the parade live, or curl up at home in front of the TV. I suspect this year coping with the cold is not going to be difficult. If you live in the north and strike up a conversation about the prevailing winters with anyone who is, say, above 35 years of age, you will hear a lament about how the winters are just not what they used to be. Growing up in Delhi in the 1980s, winter was always from Diwali to Holi, ie, beginning in October and going right upto end March with January being utterly cold. Anecdotally, NCR residents are appalled at how the winters have shortened. Barely has one gotten out the woollens and it is time to pack them up again as the temperatures are too high even before Holi to warrant wearing woollens. Even in the two months which can still be called winters — December and January — one needs much less than before. Heavy coats and jackets lie untouched as one can usually get by with a single sweater.

Our drawing room talk is in consonance with what professional meteorologists are saying. A study by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, that examined changes in temperatures across India from 1950-2005 found that while maximum temperatures showed an upward trend, minimum temperatures are also rising, across seasons. In other words, all temperatures seem to be rising, which explains why summers are becoming unbearable and winters are barely felt.

Documentary filmmaker Jalalud din Baba, who has made award-winning films on how climate change affects his homeland of Kashmir, mentions in an interview that he met a cherry farmer up in the mountains who told him that, for several years, it was not snowing in Kashmir like it should in January and February. But in the spring, there is sudden snowfall, adversely affecting the harvest of cherries, almonds and apples. Saffron, the kesar we put in biryani and desserts, is the delicate stigma of a bush that is well suited to the state’s climate, grown in Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar. This year Kashmir had the lowest saffron productivity in the past 50 years because of insufficient rainfall.

Bizarre weather is all around us if we even casually observe cities which we are connected to through family or visit frequently on work. Chennaiites will tell you how the rainy season in the city was always between October and December but in 2017 in the end of October there was heavy downpour, flooded streets and Chennai residents were bracing themselves for a repeat of the horror of 2015. In one week, the city received 74 per cent of its expected rainfall for the season! Some observers are cautious and use words like “climate variability” instead of climate change, while others are convinced that Chennai’s erratic rainfall in the past decade or so indicates that something is amiss. Some weather buttons are getting wrongly pressed at the wrong time. Extreme Rainfall events called EREs, which Chennai-ites have witnessed in recent years, have also shown a threefold increase in occurrence over central India according to scientists from Pune’s Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, whose findings were published in the prestigious journal Nature.

There are many instances we can observe of uneven rain distribution even within a local geography along with wide variations in intensity. Parts of Greater Noida received barely any rain last monsoon while the neighbouring town of Noida, 25 kilometres away was getting soaked. On a state-wide scale, eastern UP was flooded while rain in western UP was patchy. In September, heavy rains and strong winds lashed bajra and vegetable crops which were ready to be harvested. Be-mausam ki baarish may be inspirational for a poet but wreaks havoc in farmers’ lives.

There are two separate issues here. One is about how erratic weather, unseasonal rain and extreme climatic events are becoming observable even to lay people. Climate change experts agree that most of the climatic variations observable over the past 50 years is because of human activity and the usual suspects of deforestation, urbanisation and industrialisation. The other issue is about how cities are adversely impacted because of these variations. It is clear that world over, loss to life and property due to floods, droughts, cyclones, cold and heat waves are increasing steeply since the last decade of the twentieth century. But the jury is still out on whether this is because more such extreme weather events are occurring or due to increased vulnerability of cities and towns whose infrastructure is struggling to meet the needs of a growing population.

Climate science moves slowly, observing phenomena for several decades before venturing to make a link between cause and effect. Forget the Paris agreement, Rio conference and Trump’s scornful dismissals and just look around you. The lived experience of people seems to point to the fact that climate change is at our doorstep, affecting us in our own lifetimes.

The writer is the author of the book Urban Villager: Life in an Indian satellite town