The report discusses the climate condition over Indian region during the year 2023. Notably, global temperatures soared to exceptionally high levels during this period (WMO.No.1347). The India Meteorological Department continuously monitors weather and climate over Indian region. The annual mean land surface air temperature averaged over India during 2023 was …
Flood hazard in a basin depends upon the hydrological response of the upstream basin area. The upstream basin area may produce different amounts of run-off for a given rainfall based on its hydrologic response. The present communication shows the importance of drainage network characteristics in understanding the hydrologic response of …
A few days ago, most of India reeled under drought. Cities thirsted for water. Karnataka's chief minister S M Krishna - seeing water supply in his software capital reduced to once in three days - announced desperate measures, such as prayer. The entire country seemed to await the first emancipatory …
with temperatures increasing and rainfall patterns changing, a new study paints a grim food security scenario for small landholders engaged in rainfed maize farming in Africa and Latin America. The research, by Columbia-based Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical and Kenya-based International Livestock Research Institute (ilri), predicts an aggregate decline of …
Even as citypeople all over India were finalising their Christmas party-hopping plans, a celebration of a very different kind galvanised Junagadh district, Gujarat. From December 23 to 26, 2002, thousands of villagers from villages in Keshod, Maliya, Memdarda and Mangrol talukas went on a padayatra (footmarch). Their mission? Sensitising and …
Every year, the month of May ends. India enters June, and expectations of rain. Small farmers scan the sky, reading the clouds (the big ones have subsidised irrigation pumps, and undemocratic canal water-sharing clout). Politicians begin to place calls to the New Delhi-based Indian Meterological Department (imd). Within the imd, …
This report seeks to describe the context and process of global climate change, its actual or likely impacts on health, and how human societies and their governments should respond with particular focus on the health sector.
Good for a change A common pollutant strongly impacts the behaviour of arsenic and possibly other toxic metals in some lakes, shows a research conducted by us-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nitrate pollution reacts with naturally occurring iron to create iron oxides that in turn adsorb arsenic. The result is …
mystery continues to shroud the recent sporadic spells of green-coloured rain in Sangrampur village, located in the Basirhat sub-division of West Bengal, with consensus on their actual cause proving elusive. While state environment minister Manab Mukherjee and West Bengal Pollution Control Board (wbpcb) officials have explained away the phenomenon as …
a new computer model by National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) can now indicate exactly where rain or snow originate across the world. The model simulates water movement in the atmosphere around the world and traces it from the places where it evaporates to the places where it falls back …
Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide will almost certainly lead to changes in global mean climate. But because - by defnition-extreme events are rare, it is significantly more difficult to quantify the risk of extremes. Ensemblebased probabilistic predictions, as used in short- and medium term forecasts of weather and climate, …
aerosols may be the culprits weakening the Earth's water cycle by reducing rainfall. This was discovered during a study conducted by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, usa. According to the researchers, the tiny aerosols that are primarily made up of black carbon could …
Human activities are releasing tiny particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere. These human-made aerosols enhance scattering and absorption of solar radiation. They also produce brighter clouds that are less efficient at releasing precipitation. These in turn lead to large reductions in the amount of solar irradiance reaching Earth's surface, a corresponding …
This paper critically examines some narratives of water scarcity in Kutch, western India. It argues that images of dwindling rainfall and increasing drought largely serve to legitimize the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam and manufacture dominant perceptions concerning scarcity. This manufacture has naturalized scarcity in the region and largely benefits powerful …
For more than a decade now, Orissa has been reeling under contrasting extreme weather conditions: from heat waves to cyclones; from droughts to floods. Calamities have been visiting the state with alarming regularity. Out of the last 100 years, the state has been dis-aster- affected for 90 years: floods have …
These are amazing statistics but if you are interested in the subject of water and recognise its importance for human survival and development, they are a major warning call. I was in Kerala last week for the release of our new book Making Water Everybody's Business: Practice and Policy of …
desert dust blown from one part of the world to another can choke rain clouds, cutting rainfall hundreds of kilometres away. This discovery, made with the help of us National Aeronautical and Space Administration ( nasa) satellites, suggests that droughts over arid regions, such as central Africa, are made worse …
Facing its worst drought in 90 years, South Korea has mobilised a fifth of its military force to help combat the situation. At least 130,000 troops were sent to 90 worst-hit regions armed with drilling machines, trucks, excavators and pumping motors, to dig wells or draw water from reservoirs. "It …
About 80 tropical cyclones (with wind speeds equal to or greater than 35 knots) form in the world’s waters every year. Of these about 6.5% develop in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. Since the frequency of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal is about 5 to 6 times …
The Japanese capital Tokyo receives 1,400 mm of rain in a year. But concrete prevents it from percolating into the ground. Urban flooding and acute water scarcity affected the people almost every second year. The solution to both problems lay in rainwater harvesting. Sumida City was the first ward of …
