With summer setting in earlier than usual, temperatures well above the normal are being recorded. Meteorologists have predicted warmer days ahead, with a high probability of heat waves could apart from causing health issues also result in crop damage.

Scientists attributed the trend of above-normal maximum temperatures to the country’s four-month deficit rainfall. Only the southern peninsula recorded some rains on account of a few low-pressure areas and depressions in the south Bay of Bengal.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the country was supposed to have a normal rainfall of 21.8 mm in February but received 68 per cent less at 7.1 mm.

As per a recently compiled background briefing by Climate Trends, a research-based consulting initiative, the weather conditions are a result of increasing global warming. Continuous increases in the global mean temperatures have been impacting the dynamics of larger weather phenomena. Changes in the characteristics of these systems have largely affected the precipitation in India during winter.

Experts said that naturally occurring climate events like ENSO El Nino/El Nina/IOD. The first refers to the warming of the waters in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean, which is observed to have an effect on the Indian monsoon,

taking place alongside more powerful human-induced climate change.

“La Niña is a climate pattern marked by colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tend to suppress global temperatures. However, global warming and changing climatic conditions tend to play a major role, which can be temporarily governed by these ENSO conditions but cannot completely outplay the effects of climate change. La Niña cooling of 2020-22 did not suffice and the years still got listed among the hottest,” said G P Sharma, president (meteorology and climate change) Skymet Weather.

Source - https://www.deccanchronicle.com