Are our winters on the decline?

This November, everyone wondered what happened to the winters. So far, the season has been rather lukewarm and promises to be so for the next month or so. With December already halfway through, are we headed for a shorter, warmer winter this time?

 Winter is only turning a little warmer, but not evaporating, say experts. The ‘shrinking winter theory’ originated from the fact that 2010 and 2011 were relatively warmer years worldwide. This decade was also the warmest on record: Even traditionally cold countries like UK and US recorded more sunny days.
 

Medha Khole, deputy director general of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) in Pune, said, “We are experiencing warm winters for the last few years . It all depends on geological factors. But it is incorrect to suggest that winter would not exist at all this time. It might, at best, get little warmer and little shorter.”

 According to the World Meteorological Organization statement on the status of global climate, the average global temperature in the year 2010 was 0.53degree Celsius ± (plus minus) 0.09degree Celsius. The year 2010 was an exceptionally warm year in North America especially the Arctic. MK Pandit, head of department at School of Environmental Studies (SES), Delhi University, cautioned, “Earth has its own cycle of warming and cooling, hence immediately at this point of time, we should not come to a conclusion that there will be no winters for the next twenty years or so.”
 

The conclusion that winters would not exist, he explained, was borne more out of fear. “Lack of winter or no winter syndrome is a part of the theory gaining ground among ordinary folk that life is dying and one parameter of it is that winter is going away from us,” explained Pandit.

 In November and December this year, USA recorded a temperature of 12 to 16 degrees Celsius. In the UK, the average temperature was set somewhere between 9 to 10 degrees Celsius. In India, the average maximum temperature was 28 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature was 12 degree Celsius.

While Khole of IMD Pune opined that November 2011 was warmer because of “some kind of easterly wave and cyclonic system in Arabian sea”, Chandra Bhushan, deputy director at Centre for Science and Environment, said, “The primary reason for long, warm days and short, cool nights is carbon emissions. Excessive burning of fossil fuels has led to an increase in the global temperature.”
 

Pollution, which is said to be a major reason for such a shift, is on rise in major cities of India. As per the latest official data of ministry of environment and forests, Delhi, Faridabad, Allahabad and Patna recorded a rise in pollution levels from 2008 onwards. Sample this: The pollution level recorded in the year 2008 for Delhi was 198 mgs per cubic metre. This figure rose to 243 in 2009 and the latest figure in 2010 stood at 259 mgs per cubic metre. The national average level is 60 mgs per cubic metre.”Ninety to 100% of global warming is a post industrial phenomenon,” lamented Pandit at DU, while CSE’s Bhusan warned that it was high time that one limited the excessive use of carbon economy.