Very heavy rainfall continues in North India, Himachal, J&K and Uttarakhand worst hit

North India has been witnessing very heavy rainfall in the past few days with Punjab receiving nearly 1300% excess rainfall in a single day, ET reported citing IMD data. Rivers in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and Jammu flowing above the danger mark.. As per the IMD data, Punjab has recorded 1,272 percent excess rainfall in 24 hours until 8.30 am on Monday, with 48 mm rain against a normal 3.5 mm. Haryana registered 702 per cent excess with 28.1 mm against a normal of 3.5 mm, while Himachal Pradesh saw 554 per cent excess with 42.5 mm against a normal of 6.5 mm. The IMD also issued an ‘Orange Alert’ for Delhi, which woke up to heavy rain on Friday. 

IMD said most of the extremely heavy rainfall events this month have been recorded in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, “due to a  formation of a trough in eastern Pakistan”, ET reported. 

Extreme rain in Mumbai result of ‘climate change on steroids’ 

Eight people died and thousands were evacuated as heavy rainfall battered Maharashtra, reported HT. Heavy rainfall continues in Mumbai with wet weather forecast till September 1, reported TOI. Mumbai has been under a deluge. Scientists say after a prolonged dry patch in July (usually one of the wettest months in Mumbai) a spell of extremely heavy rain returned to the city around August 16, Indian Express reported.

“While there is a natural variability of monsoon weather systems, climate change acts like a steroid. The northward swing of the southwesterly monsoon winds is pumping massive amounts of moisture from the warm Arabian Sea into the northern Western Ghats. This northward swing is a combination of global warming, especially the warming over the Middle East, and the natural variability of the monsoon winds,” Dr Raghu Murtugudde, Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland, and retired IIT Bombay professor, told the newspaper. 

On August 19 in a massive rescue operation nearly 800 people were evacuated as they were stranded mid air in two over crowded monorails that broke down amid heavy rain, reported the Hindu. 

Death toll from northern Pakistan monsoon floods rises to almost 400

The death toll from five days of “torrential rain” in Pakistan rose to almost 400, Agence-France Press reported, with disaster officials reporting that more than 356 people have been killed in the northern mountainous province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since Thursday evening. 

 NYT reported that deadly impact of climate change-amplified monsoon rains across Pakistan and the “catastrophic new normal” they have brought to the country”

Study : Rising temperatures in the Middle East may be “intensifying rainfall over north-west India

Warming of the land in West Asia, faster than global average, is creating a pressure gradient between the land and the Arabian Sea that is pulling moisture-laden south westerly winds towards Himalayan foothills, western India and Pakistan resulting in extreme rain events and floods, reported TOI. Extreme rain events in Maharashtra, especially in Mumbai, are a result of faster than average warming of the Arabian Sea, which is driving surges of moisture towards land resulting in three-fold jump in extreme rain events, TOI reported citing studies. 

The newspaper also cited studies that said monsoon patterns are shifting westwards from north east India, where there’s a 10% decrease in mean rainfall and 25% increase in mean rain in West and northwest India. 

Kerala report 12 more diseases in a decade, ‘marker of climate change’

Kerala reported rising 12 more communicable diseases over the past decade, taking the total number of communicable diseases in the state to 25. Scientists have linked the rise of diseases to climate change, reported TOI.

EU wildfires hit new record, over 400,000 hectares burned in Spain 

The European Union is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, surpassing 1 million hectares burned, Politico reported, adding that fires have burned 1,016,000 hectare, an area larger than Cyprus or around a third of the size of Belgium, since January, according to data from the bloc’s European Forest Fire Information System.

The outlet reported that Spain accounts for more than 400,000 hectares burned, while in much-smaller Portugal, fires charred 270,000 hectares — or 3 percent of the country’s entire territory. In Spain, where records stretch back to the 1960s, this year is the worst fire season since 1994, according to government data.

The report said both countries have endured searing heat in recent weeks, desiccating forests and turning the peninsula into a tinderbox. The report said climate change is exacerbating wildfire risk, bringing more frequent and intense heat waves and droughts.

Private forests more prone to wild fires, study reveals 

A new study found that private industrial forests are more prone to wildfires than natural forests as they face extreme weather conditions, exacerbated by climate change, and forest management, Wiley online library, reported. 

To investigate the effects of extreme weather and forest management on fire severity, scientists used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to characterise pre-fire forest structure across five large wildfires, which burned 460,000 ha in the northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. 

Researchers found that the odds of high severity fire occurrence in these fires were 1.45 times higher on private industrial land than in publicly owned forests, an effect equivalent to a three standard deviation decrease in fuel moisture.

Scientists found that dense, spatially homogeneous forests with high ladder fuels were more likely to burn at high severity. Extreme weather magnified the effect of density, suggesting that treatments which remove overstory trees are especially important in extreme conditions. Forests managed by private industry were more likely to be dense, spatially homogeneous, and contain high ladder fuel loads than publicly owned forests, offering a potential explanation for the increase in high-severity fire occurrence on private industrial land.

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