By Sreerekha Pillai
Forest fires are on a rampage in Uttarakhand. Snow on the Tibetean plateau aka the world’s roof, surrounded by Mount Everest and K2, two of the highest mountains in the world, is melting at a speedy price. The national capital witnessed one of the coldest Novembers lately, with temperature dipping to 10 degree Celsius. Do we want more motives to realise the world is on the edge of a precipice?
The world is warming up also rapidly. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates that the earth’s surface temperature has risen by 1.18 degrees Celsius considering that the late 19th century, with 2016 and 2020 being the warmest years on record. It also pegs sea level rise to be 20 cm in the last century, with the price accelerating with every passing year.
Global warming—a concern which will figure higher on the agenda of US President Joe Biden’s Climate Summit—is getting propelled by carbon dioxide emissions, which trap heat in earth’s atmosphere. The continuous develop-up of heat throws climate patterns into disarray, causing wildfires, shrinking ice sheets, sea level rise, and intense climate events.
Forest fires
India has been increasingly battling forest fires. Though numerous of these may be human induced, according to a current report in New Scientist, climate modify has enhanced the danger of wildfires, with such events set to come to be more frequent in future. According to researchers, fire climate seasons—involving higher temperatures, low humidity and rainfall, accompanied by windy conditions—have lengthened globally.
Uttarakhand, one of the worst impacted Indian states on account of its fragile ecosystem, lost 1,297 hectares of forests among October 2020 and March 2021 in 989 fire incidents. Dry deciduous forests in India are prone to such fire incidents, with states such as Odisha (Simlipal National Park), Chattisgarh (6,520 forest fires from February to March), and Madhya Pradesh (Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve) bearing the brunt this year.
Fires do not just wipe away valuable forest sources but also release the carbon locked in the biomass. Thus, forest fires are also indicative of an ecological transition—from carbon sinks to sources of carbon dioxide.
With such events right here to remain, going forward, satellite-based remote sensing technologies and geographic info technique (GIS) really should be successfully employed to monitor forests and develop an early warning technique for fire-prone locations. Limiting climate modify to effectively under 2 degree Celsius in line with the Paris accord could be the essential to lowering future fire dangers.
Melting glaciers
The world’s interest may be on the melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, also known as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ simply because of its possible to raise the world sea level by more than half a metre, but closer residence the glacial burst in Uttarakhand lately, resulting in a flash flood, had professionals pinning the blame on a swiftly warming planet.
The World Glacier Monitoring Service, which has been monitoring international glacial modify, says that glacial loss has been doubling each decade considering that the 1970s. Another study by the University of Reading in England, which analysed 40 years of satellite observations across India, Nepal, China, and Bhutan, concluded that climate modify is devouring the Himalayan glaciers. Experts recommend that glaciers in the Hindu Kush area have thinned by 27 per cent, with the likelihood of losing half of its present-day glacial region by 2060.
Melting of glaciers in the Himalayan area can not only spark floods and landslides but also deprive communities of water availability for drinking, agriculture, and hydropower. While slowing down temperature rise may surely enable, adaptation measures such as restoring forests and shrubs on slopes will not only hold the soil collectively but also cut down the influence of flash floods and landslides.
Other disasters
The World Bank’s 2019 Inform Risk Index ranks India 29 out of 191 nations due to its predisposition to flooding, cyclones, and drought. In 2020 alone, intense climate events like super cyclone Amphan that hit Kolkata and Odisha and floods price India Rs 10 lakh crore. This is 322 instances larger than India’s annual outlay for the atmosphere, according to the UK-based Christian Aid.
Scientists have been warning that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the present pace, India would come to be uninhabitable in 50 years, with temperatures as higher as the Sahara desert.
With the stage set for the virtual theatre of 40 world leaders led by Biden, some challenging-bargained climate breakthroughs can be anticipated. However, it remains to be noticed which road the collective takes—the effortless or the tough. If it opts for the road much less travelled by (the tough one which locations the interests of the planet above national issues), it could effectively finish up creating all the distinction.
(The author heads the Quality Control Team at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a investigation-based believe tank.)