Why Kashmir and Ladakh are without snow this winter, its implications

Dry winter

Though the lack of snow is the most visible in Gulmarg, a major tourist destination during this time of the year, the whole of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have remained largely without rains or snow this winter.

Winter precipitation in Jammu and Kashmir, as also Ladakh, is mainly in the form of snowfall. Normally, the region gets its first snowfall in the first half of December, and then through most of January. But it has been mostly dry this season. Jammu and Kashmir saw 80 per cent rainfall deficit in December, and 100 per cent (absolutely no rain) deficit in January so far, India Meteorological Department (IMD) data show. Ladakh has had no precipitation at all in December or January.

While snowfall in the region has been showing a declining trend in recent years, this season is remarkable.

The overall decreasing trend of snowfall has been attributed to a decline in western disturbance events and gradual rise in temperatures, which involves the role of climate change. The prevailing El Nino event in the eastern Pacific Ocean might be the additional factor to account for this year, scientists say.

Western Disturbances

Winter precipitation in the Himalayan region is caused mainly by Western Disturbances. These are large eastward-moving rain-bearing wind systems that originate beyond Afghanistan and Iran, picking up moisture from as far as the Mediterranean Sea and even the Atlantic Ocean.

Western Disturbances are the primary source of rainfall over north and northwest India during the post-monsoon and winter months. Along with the south-west monsoon season that runs from June to September, and the north-east monsoon that brings rains to Tamil Nadu and some other regions, Western Disturbances are the third major contributors to India’s annual rainfall.

During winters, about four to six western disturbance events happen every month on an average. This season there was one feeble western disturbance event in December that did not bring any rains, and another similar one in January.

“Western disturbances have been showing a declining trend in recent times. In some years we have seen just two or three events a month, when normally five or six are expected. Because of this, the overall precipitation during the winter months in the northern regions has also been declining,” A P Dimri, an atmospheric scientist who is currently the director of Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, said.

Several recent studies, including those by Dimri, have captured this declining trend. One of them noted that the mean frequency of strong and extreme Western Disturbances, ones that definitely result in rainfall or snowfall, had declined as much as 43 per cent in recent years.

“The other, connected, thing is that temperatures in these regions are rising. The rate of increase of temperature is seen to be higher in the upper elevation areas than in the plains… In fact, look at the temperatures in Kashmir this winter. On many days, Srinagar temperatures are comparable to those of Delhi, sometimes they appear to be even higher,” Dimri said. “This is also contributing to the decline in snowfall,” he added.

El Nino impact

Indeed, there have been several years in the last one decade — 2022, 2018, 2015 — when winters have been relatively dry in Jammu and Kashmir, and snowfall has been very low. Mukhtar Ahmad, head of the Srinagar centre of IMD, said the situation this winter might be compounded by El Nino.

“For the past few months, El Niño has persisted and will continue to do so in the coming months. This has affected the global atmospheric circulation, and might be contributing to the deficit precipitation in the region as well,” Ahmad said, while adding that El Nino alone was not the reason.

He pointed out that even in the absence of El Nino, some years had seen very less snowfall. “In recent years, 2022 (December), 2018 (December-January), 2015 (January), 2014 (December), 1998 (December-January) and 1992 (December) were dry,” Ahmad said.

Dimri agreed that the declining snowfall in Kashmir could be a direct fall-out of climate change. “Indeed. I do think that climate change has a role to play here. Many of our studies point in that direction,” he said.

Repercussions

Less snowfall in the region is expected to have both short-term and long-term implications. Long-term implications include the generation of less hydroelectricity, an increase in the rate of glacier melting, and an adverse impact on the drinking water supply, since scanty snowfall means very little recharge of groundwater.

In the short term, a dry spell can result in an increase in forest fires, agricultural drought, and a drop in crop production. “It can lead to an early spring, which means early flowering, which can cause a reduction in yield,” Ahmad said.

The winter snow is a source of steady moisture to the soil that is vital for winter crops, particularly horticulture. Yields of apples or saffron, important ingredients of local economy, are badly affected in the absence of snowfall.