Opinion Express View on the hottest July: Bad weather report

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest data, released on Thursday, shows that the world has experienced its hottest July ever recorded. The American institute’s measurement differs slightly from the EU’s Copernicus Observatory which clocked last month as the second hottest July on record. Some of the warming is due to El Nino and there is a distinct possibility that September will be cooler if La Nina keeps its date. However, given the staggering difference between the temperatures of the last 12 months and earlier records, there is now near unanimity on one thing: The world is entering uncharted territory on climate change. This will not only require hastening mitigation measures but also plugging knowledge gaps in diverse realms — weather reporting, making agriculture climate resilient, healthcare and urban planning.

Climate modelling has traditionally been a slow and reactive process. While such studies are, by and large, accurate in simulating global and national trends, they tend to underestimate regional variations. This makes it difficult to plan adaptation to local weather vagaries — for example, switching to crops that can withstand higher temperatures. In recent years, scientists have faced another challenge — hyper-local weather conditions. In India, for instance, the IMD predicts weather at the state, district or city levels. Increasingly, however, it’s becoming apparent that blocks and localities within cities and districts require information on the magnitude of heat or rainfall. Delhi, for instance, witnessed its hottest July in 10 years. At the same time, parts of the city went under water after being lashed by torrential rain. Microclimate forecasting is a nascent field of study, and at most places it is heavily reliant on historical data that doesn’t account for vagaries like those experienced by Delhi.

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One solution is to increase the number of meteorological stations to monitor weather in different urban and rural zones. In India, the Centre plans to set up a weather station in each panchayat to provide granular data on rainfall, frost and humidity. Another imperative is to develop information-sharing mechanisms within countries and across national borders. Several extreme weather events — including the recent Wayanad tragedy and the Pakistan floods of 2022 — have underlined the urgency to co-relate the warming of seas with local climatic conditions. Scaling up projects under the UNFCCC’s aegis — the decade-old Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative for instance — could go a long way in weathering uncertainties. The world needs a better response to the growing number of floods, droughts, forest fires and glacier loss.