Monday, August 20, 2012

Reduction in rainfall across Kerala over past century with Peermade Annual Rainfall reduced from 5165 mm from 4428 mm

Peermade (-737 mm), Kottayam (-404), Punalur (-399), Tiruvalla (-361) and Alappuzha (-269) are those stations in the State which have witnessed significant reduction in their annual rainfall during the last century. Y.E.A. Raj, Deputy Director-General, Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, revealed this during a special address at the Kerala Environment Congress 2012 here. 

The topic of his address was ‘Extent of climate change over India and its projected impact on Indian agriculture.’Climate change in respect of individual stations manifests with mixed trends with positive and negative changes, he said. For instance, positive trends are available from stations such as Kochi (+ 100.6 mm) and Kasaragod (+153.5 mm) in annual rainfall in the State.

“It must be stated here that rainfall series for individual months/seasons in some of the series may have shown a significant trend.In some other cases, these trends would have manifested only recently.
“A more detailed analysis of time series must be performed to detect and analyse such incidence,” Raj said. 

The scenario of significant climate change, especially global warming, is now well documented and the evidence incontrovertible. However, in the Indian context, there appears to be no clear signal of such change at least in crucial parameters such as rainfall and occurrence of cyclonic storms. 

Projected climate change based on various models suggests steady increase in temperature and, at a later stage, slight increase in rainfall. The effect on agriculture is likely to be mixed, Raj said. The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere initially favours agricultural production.But increase in temperature would have exactly the reverse effect. The situation is fluid and could even be seen to be contradictory at times. This calls for learnt and measures responses based on scientific facts free from transnational biases. 

Source : Business Line

1 comment:

  1. PradeepSir,

    Your observations are correct. Much of south interior karnataka,Rayalseema,adjoining TN are in for desertification. Infact SriLanka is facing similar problem - recurssive droughts. But going up, Maharashtra,central india,Raj/Guj(to some extent) are having increasing rains.

    Karnataka is facing consecutive extreme droughts. Rains (season almost coming to an end) have completely eluded Bangalore. In fact Bangalore, Mandya,Mysore, Kolar turn out be more drier than Saurashthra,Kutch,Jaisalmar. Major interior parts of Karnataka, Rayalseema, adjoining TN are in for desertification. Bangalore will turn out to be a classical example of what happens if man goes against nature. Continuous felling of trees, draining all lakes, dense concrete mess, increase in inflows of people, endless traffic with no regulation/check for number of increasing vehicles - city is in for its own destruction. It is quite surprising city with its rich IT/BPO/MNC sectors, rich billionaires, institutions like IISc,ISRO are neutral towards enforcing danger. Entire state has undergone massive climate change (hot and dry) in last 10 years. With no water, it may only lead to mass exodus of people from Bangalore.

    http://www.deccanherald.com/content/272785/35000-trees-cut-road-widening.html

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