The new normal climate

India needs to focus on adaptation

The worst fears about the likely acceleration in extreme weather events due to climate change are coming true. The behaviour of the monsoon — a key global weather system — in the recent past, as also in the current season, bears this out. The country has already suffered huge damage to life, property and infrastructure due to freakish weather events, though the month of August, the main season for floods, is still ahead. The rainfall in the ongoing monsoon season, albeit statistically almost normal — just 2 per cent short of the long period average — has been extremely erratic.

A sizeable part of the country, especially the vast north-western plains and almost the entire north-east, remained substantially deficient in rainfall till the third week of July (virtually the first half of the four-month rainy season of June to September). The deficit varied from 11 per cent in the north-west to 17 per cent in the north-east. But, during the same period, the peninsular region received copious downpours resulting in nearly 25 per cent excess rainfall. Though the unevenly distributed precipitation has not yet impacted the farm sector much, as indicated by almost normal progress of crop planting, the unusually heavy showers in some pockets of the country have caused extensive damage. Maharashtra and Uttarakhand have, indeed, been the worst affected states. The rainfall in the Koyna dam catchment in Maharashtra has broken the past 100-year record, a sizeable part of it falling in just three days, from July 22 to 24. The death toll in the rain-caused havoc has already exceeded 170 and many more people are still reported missing. Uttarakhand has suffered heavy losses from devastating landslides. Among the metropolitan cities, Mumbai became the victim of monsoon fury in the middle of July while Delhi was pounded by extremely heavy showers towards the end of this month. Nearly one-third of Delhi’s total monsoon rainfall this year — quantitatively the highest in the past 18 years — was received in just two days, July 27 and 28.  

What is worse, such erratic weather events are tending to become the new normal. Since little can be done to prevent calamitous changes in climate, the only way to minimise their adverse impact is by learning to live with them — adapting to the new normal. What is needed, in fact, is a broad strategy to cope with the mutated climate. The stress laid on the mitigation aspect of the global strategy to combat climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change does not seem to have produced the desired results as yet. Neither the vagaries of weather nor the consequential losses have shown any perceptible downturn.

For India, deemed one of the most vulnerable nations, the best strategy seems to be to capture the surplus water and conserve it in the ponds, dams and other water-holding structures or, better still, guide it to the underground water aquifers. At present, the bulk of the rainwater is allowed to flow down wastefully to the seas, eroding precious soil in its wake. Rainwater harvesting on a watershed basis is the mantra for efficient water management. There is also an urgent need for augmenting the country’s overall water storage capacity by creating new reservoirs and rejuvenating the existing ones — many of which have been suffering from neglect.