Heavy rain due to manmade warming: Study

NEW DELHI: Human beings may be partially to blame for the increasing intensity of rain and snowstorms, says a new climate study published on Thursday.

This is the first time human-induced rise in greenhouse gases has been directly linked to intensity of extreme rain and snow. The study in Nature journal examined data from across the northern hemisphere, including India, and found that the intensity of extreme rainfall and snow had gone up in recent years.

The authors studied the most extreme episodes of rain and snow from 1951 to 1999 and found their magnitude on the rise towards the end of the century. They then compared the actual observations with predictions in various climate models.

It was found that natural variability alone could not account for the intensity of storms, but when the models factored in greenhouse gases, they showed intensity increases similar to those observed — indicating that global warming effects were kicking in.

''Our results provide the first formal identification of a human contribution to the observed intensification of extreme precipitation,'' the paper by scientists in Canada and Scotland said.

This rise held true at scales no smaller than a continent, said the study. That means it is not possible to link single events — like the severe floods in Pakistan last year or the cloudburst at Leh — to climate change, but the trend shows up over a large geographical area in course of time.

''Our results also show that the global climate models we used may have underestimated the observed trend, which implies that extreme precipitation events may strengthen more quickly in the future than projected and that they may have more severe impact than estimated,'' the study warned. The same issue of Nature carries another study by British researchers on flooding in England in the autumn of 2000. It says global warming had doubled the likelihood of the event occurring.

Source: Times of India, 19 -3-2011

Follow Gujarat's lead in fighting climate change”

AHMEDABAD: The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), R.K. Pachauri, on Tuesday recommended that climate change should become the centre of all developmental policies and actions, and advised other States to follow the lead given by Gujarat in this direction.

Speaking at a function for the release of a book, Convenient Action: Gujarat's Response to Climate Change written by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, which details the steps taken in Gujarat to meet the challenge, Mr. Kalam said the problem of climate change could not be viewed in isolation, and that India must immediately adopted long-term programmes like the Integrated Water Connections and Energy Independent Mission and focus on renewable sources of energy to achieve the goals in the next two decades.

Mr. Kalam said he was ‘inspired” by Mr. Modi's “beautiful book” and Gujarat's programme on linking rivers, which helped rejuvenate the Sabarmati river and solve many of health and other problems in Ahmedabad.

Mr. Kalam said he had always believed that State-wise linking of rivers was a must, and had given detailed proposals to States like Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. He said this would not only solve perennial water problems, both for drinking and agricultural purposes, but also arrest the flooding of large areas every year and save over $500 million, which the government was forced to spend for short-term relief measures for the flood-affected.

Appreciating Gujarat's agricultural growth — which he said was three times higher than the national average, despite it being a drought-prone State — Mr. Kalam said that the construction of a series of check-dams, village bunds and other water conservation methods had largely contributed to achieving the goal.

Dr. Pachauri, who is also director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), said the world had no time to waste and wait for cent-per-cent scientific proof that climate change was affecting the earth. “Our future generation is moving towards destruction every minute; climate change is a reality and what is happening around us already is enough to compel us for actions.”

Mr. Modi — who was acclaimed as only the second political leader in the world, after former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, in writing a book on climate change — said that Indian scriptures written thousands of years ago had mentioned possible climate change and had given solutions, but not many people had the intention to follow the same. He said his inspiration came from Mr.Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth, which highlighted the resistance that people usually develop for any inconveniences caused by the problems arising out of climate change.

Source: The Hindu, 22-12-2010