Centre finally wakes up and decides to study extreme weather events after Kashmir floods

Following India experiencing "extreme weather events" in regular intervals – Leh cloudburst in 2010, Uttarakhand tragedy in 2013 and now unusually heavy rain and floods in Kashmir – Indian government has now decided to study reasons behind it and also find if it has any links to climate change in the south Asia region. Events like 2005 Mumbai floods are also among such some extreme weather events that have hit the country in the last decade or so.

The study would be done under the watch of the union ministry of earth sciences (MoES) as they have witnessed an increase in frequency of extreme weather events like sudden and extreme rainfall in Mumbai, Leh, Uttarakhand and now Jammu and Kashmir which not only lead to loss of lives of thousands but also damaged property worth tens of thousands of crores of rupees.

"This study would explore the reason behind such events. We are also trying to explore possibility of international cooperation for this as extreme weather events are inter-related and changes in climate conditions in north-pole may be impacting Indian monsoon … thus we need to study the impact," a senior MoES official told dna.

"But the cause behind tragedy in Leh, Uttarakhand and Kashmir is interaction of western disturbance and India's monsoon…we would try to study the reason behind occurrence of such interaction and that too so frequent now," said the senior MoES official.

MoES is also, meanwhile, in the process of putting up a Doppler radar in Srinagar to forecast extreme weather events like extremely heavy rainfall. Doppler radars can predict severe thunderstorms and also help in issuing early warnings. As of now 15 major cities have Doppler radars and there is a plan of Indian government to put nine more by 2017 in the Himalayan region.

At present there seems to be no concrete scientific proof connecting climate change and extreme weather events but several researchers in India and abroad have tried to establish over the years that climate change has impacted the monsoon with extreme weather events such as excess rainfall or drought.

International reports and even studies and climate models developed within India have also predicted that India will be increasingly hit by extreme rainfall events as the world continues to warm in the coming decades.

Also whether it was tragedy in Leh, Uttarakhand or in Jammu and Kashmir now, government has officially never even named climate change as the possible reason.

"In its reports on these three incidents, the Indian met department has only called them unusual incidents caused by interaction of western disturbance and southwest monsoon but nowhere climate change has been mentioned. This ostrich like approach by Indian government of remaining in denial over climate change would not work," said Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment.

CSE explained that as per various research works in India heavy and very heavy rainfall events in India has increased over the past 50-60 years.

CSE's deputy director general Chandra Bhushan said a study by BN Goswami of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has showed that between 1950 and 2000, the incidence of heavy rainfall events (more than 100 mm in a day) and very heavy events (more than 150 mm in a day) have increased while moderate events (5-100 mm in a day) have decreased.

Even as per the analysis by the Working Group II of the IPCC Assessment Report (AR5), floods and droughts are likely to increase in India. India will get more rainfall but in lesser number of rainy days and increase in extreme precipitation during monsoons is also predicted.

"Most climate models also predict that India will be increasingly hit by extreme rainfall events in coming years," said Bhushan.

Both Narain and Bhushan said that "Kashmir floods are a grim reminder that climate change is now hitting India harder."