Recent weather anomalies could be due to climate change: Experts

“The monsoon is acting very differently,” said Kamaljit Ray,director of the Indian Meteorological Department,Ahmedabad. “We use around 10 parameters to make forecasts. But this year,almost all our forecasts turned out incorrect,” he added.

Ray said the first major anomaly is the increasing incidence of extreme weather. The second feature,he said,is a slight increase in temperature over much of the region and the third is change in rainfall patterns.

He added that extreme weather was reported in Nalia,Kutch district on February 7,2008. The temperature there dropped to 0.4 degree Celsius.

“This was the lowest ever temperature recorded in the (region) in last 100 years,” said Ray.

There has been a slight increase in the average temperature,both at night and during the day. At some places it is 0.2 degree Celsius,at others it is 0.3,and at some places,it is even 1 degree Celsius.

However,the trend has been confined to Saurashtra and south Gujarat,as other areas “remain normal”.

As with the increasing average temperature,the change in rainfall pattern is again mostly confined to Saurashtra and south Gujarat.

Seasonal averages have been on the rise,varying from 20 mm to 50 mm.

In fact,between 2003 and 2008,there was never a deficit in rains. It was always either normal or excessive; something Ray said has “never been that way in the last 100 years”.

This year,only Saurashtra received excessive rain,she said,terming it “another anomaly”.

So is all this linked to climate change?

“We cannot deny the role of climate change,but for that matter we cannot link it for sure either,” she said,but added there are strong reasons to believe linking the two may not be incorrect.

The data resembles the Regional Climate Model drawn up by Dr K Krishna Kumar,a scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology,Pune.

Dr Kumar had presented the model to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on October14,and is a major component of India’s action plan on climate change.

“Our readings are following (Kumar’s) model. Both temperature and rainfall are going to increase over the western coasts of India,” Ray said.