Extreme Indian heatwave

Cooling off in Amritsar.  Source: The Washington Post

From Firstpost:

Two thirds of India is gripped by a severe heat wave. Mercury has breached 45 degrees celsius across several cities. These include Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Chandigarh. Even Pune, which was regarded as a hill station saw temperatures rise to 43 degrees on 27 May. The south has not fared any better and temperatures in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have also breached the 44 degree mark.

Vidarbha in Maharashtra remains one of the worst affected regions with the weather website El Dorado highlighting that 15 cities listed as the world's warmest in April end were from central India. Nine of these cities were from Maharashtra: Chandrapur recorded the highest temperature across the world in end April with mercury touching 48 degrees, followed by Nagpur at 47.5 degrees, and Brahmpuri witnessing temperatures as high as 47.8 degrees in May end.

Heat wave also affected normal life in Rajasthan, where Bikaner recorded the highest temperature at 45.6 degrees Celsius. The maximum temperature was above 45 degrees in several parts in the state including Ganganagar, Jaisalmer and Kota.

IMD expects temperatures to only rise further with summer showing its sting in the month of June. Long term data gathered from the IMD’s 103 weather gathering stations show that there has been a dramatic increase in temperatures between 1961 and 2018. Not only has the temperature risen in the range of 0.8 degree C, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of hot days in India.

This increase in the number of hot days is now also found across famous hill stations such as Shimla, Mussorie, Darjeeling, and Manali where temperatures have risen by more than five degrees in the summer months according to IMD stats. Temperature in Mussorie this year has already crossed 38 degrees.

Bengaluru, where summer temperatures rarely crossed 26 degrees, is presently seeing temperatures hovering at around 40 degrees as are other regions in central Karnataka. Bengaluru- based writer of children’s books Srilata Menon said, "We did not use fans two decades ago. Today, we are all using ACs. There is a huge swing between day and night temperatures. During the night there will be a thunderstorm and then in the day time it becomes very hot."

Not that the situation along the western coast is any better. Mumbai saw a temperature of over 40 degrees C on 25 March 2019 which was seven degrees above normal for the city. Writer and journalist Sherna Gandhy blames excessive concretisation for Mumbai’s woes. "We are saved by the sea breeze but as you move north, Andheri onward, the heat gets trapped in these concrete multi-storeyed buildings which is causing temperature rise."

These events mirror those of the summer of 2018 which was declared the sixth hottest summer since 1901 according to a reply given by the Minister of Environment Harsh Vardhan in the Lok Sabha on 6 February 2019.

[Read more here]

From The Washington Post:

The heat wave is part of a trend of rising temperatures in India. Last year was the sixth-warmest since national record-keeping began in 1901; 11 of the 15 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2004. The frequency of heat waves is also increasing, a government minister told India’s Parliament earlier this year.

That adds up to a huge policy challenge, noted Hem Dholakia, an environmental researcher, in a piece published last month. “Science as well as our subjective experiences has made it unequivocally clear that longer, hotter and deadlier summers are poised to become the norm due to climate change,” he wrote. Every Indian city needs a plan for combating extreme heat, he said.

Meanwhile, in Churu, normal life has stopped. Hanuman Verma, a local journalist, said that residents are hunkering down in their homes, avoiding work and refraining from shopping during the day. The roads are so hot they could burn bare feet, he said. “I have lived here all my life but have never felt this hot before,” said Verma, 65. “It is horrid.”

[Read more here]

Yes, India is always hot in summer, just as Australia is in its summer.  But this is exceptional.  And it's not going to get any better, unless the world acts.  Now.