India Archives - Page 4 of 8 - The India Climate Observatory

India spells out a climate action plan

October 7, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

We present here the summary of India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) which have been submitted to the UN Climate Change Convention (the UNFCCC). This summary has been released by the Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Our analysis of and commentary on India’s INDCs will follow in separate articles.

The Government of India has said that the country’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are balanced and comprehensive. In official statements, the government said that INDCs include reductions in the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 level and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. India has also decided to anchor a global solar alliance, INSPA (International Agency for Solar Policy & Application), of all countries located in between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.

The INDCs centre around India’s policies and programmes on promotion of clean energy, especially renewable energy, enhancement of energy efficiency, development of less carbon intensive and resilient urban centres, promotion of waste to wealth, safe, smart and sustainable green transportation network, abatement of pollution and India’s efforts to enhance carbon sink through creation of forest and tree cover. It also captures citizens and private sector contribution to combating climate change.

The INDCs outline the post-2020 climate actions they intend to take under a new international agreement. The INDCs document is prepared with a view to taking forward the Prime Minister’s vision of a sustainable lifestyle and climate justice to protect the poor and vulnerable from adverse impacts of climate change. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change adopted an inclusive process for preparation of India’s INDCs. It held stakeholder consultations with the specific involvement of the key Ministries and State Governments. Interactions were also held with civil society organisations, thinktanks and technical & academic institutions of eminence. The Ministry had commissioned Greenhouse Gas (GHG) modeling studies for projections of GHG emissions till 2050 with a decadal gap. The gist of all these consultations & studies were taken on board before submitting India’s INDCs. The government zeroed-in on a set of contributions which are comprehensive, balanced, equitable and pragmatic and addresses all the elements including Adaptation, Mitigation, Finance, Technology Transfer, Capacity Building and Transparency in Action and Support.

Planned actions and economic reforms have contributed positively to the rapidly declining growth rate of energy intensity in India. The Government of India, through its various institutions and resources, has taken steps to decouple the Indian energy system from carbon in the long run. Despite facing enormous development challenges like poverty eradication, ensuring housing, electricity and food security for all, India declared a voluntary goal of reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20–25%, over 2005 levels by 2020, despite having no binding mitigation obligations as per the Convention. A slew of policy measures to promote low carbon strategies and Renewable Energy have resulted in the decline of emission intensity of our GDP by 12% between 2005 and 2010. It is a matter of satisfaction that United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its Emission Gap Report 2014 has recognized India as one of the countries on course to achieving its voluntary goal.

India has adopted several ambitious measures for clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency in various sectors of industries, achieving lower emission intensity in the automobile and transport sector, non-fossil based electricity generation and building sector based on energy conservation. Thrust on renewable energy, promotion of clean energy, enhancing energy efficiency, developing climate resilient urban centres and sustainable green transportation network are some of the measures for achieving this goal.

Solar power in India is poised to grow significantly with Solar Mission as a major initiative of the Government of India. A scheme for development of 25 Solar Parks, Ultra Mega Solar Power Projects, canal top solar projects and one hundred thousand solar pumps for farmers is at different stages of implementation. The Government’s goal of ‘Electricity for All’ is sought to be achieved by the above programs that would require huge investments, infusion of new technology, availability of nuclear fuel and international support.

The energy efficiency of thermal power plants will be systematically and statutorily improved. Over one million medium and small enterprises will be involved in the Zero Defect Zero Effect Scheme to improve their quality, energy efficiency, enhance resource efficiency, pollution control, waste management and use of renewable energy.

Urban transport policy will encourage moving people rather than vehicles with a major focus on Mass Rapid Transit Systems. In addition to 236 km of metro rail in place, about 1150 km metro projects for cities including Pune, Ahmedabad and Lucknow are being planned. Delhi Metro, which has become India’s first MRTS project to earn carbon credits, has the potential to reduce about 0.57 million tonnes of CO₂ e annually. The switch from Bharat Stage IV (BS IV) to Bharat Stage V (BS V) and Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) to improve fuel standards across the country is also planned for the near future.

Renewable energy sources are a strategic national resource. Harnessing these sources will put India on the path to a cleaner environment, energy independence and, a stronger economy. The renewable energy technologies contribute to better air quality, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, curb global warming, add jobs to the economy and, protect environmental values such as habitat and water quality. Over the years India has successfully created a positive outlook necessary to promote investment in, demand for, and supply of, renewable energy. India’s strategy on renewable energy is driven by the objectives of energy security, energy access and also reducing the carbon footprints of the national energy systems. It has evolved over the years through increasingly stronger commitment at federal level.

The institutional arrangement for offtake of renewable energy power will be further strengthened by Renewable Purchase Obligations and Renewable Generation Obligations. India’s share of non-fossil fuel in the total installed capacity is projected to change from 30% in 2015 to about 40 % by 2030. India is running one of the largest renewable capacity expansion programmes in the world. Between 2002 and 2015, the share of renewable grid capacity has increased over 6 times, from 2% (3.9 GW) to around 13% (36 GW) from a mix of sources including Wind Power, Small Hydro Power, Biomass Power / Cogeneration, Waste to Power and Solar Power. On normative terms the CO₂ emission abatement achieved from the renewable power installed capacity was 84.92 million tons CO₂ eq. /year as of 30 June 2015.

To accelerate development and deployment of renewable energy in the country, the Government is taking a number of initiatives like up-scaling of targets for renewable energy capacity addition from 30GW by 2016-17 to 175 GW by 2021-22.The renewable power target of 175 GW by 2022 will result in abatement of 326.22 million tons of CO₂ eq. /year. The ambitious solar expansion programme seeks to enhance the capacity to 100 GW by 2022, which is expected to be scaled up further thereafter. Efforts will include scaling up efforts to increase the share of non-fossil fuel based energy resources in total electricity mix including wind power, solar, hydropower, biomass, waste to energy and nuclear power.

The range of ecosystem goods and services provided by forests include carbon sequestration and storage. Despite the significant opportunity costs, India is one of the few countries where forest and tree cover has increased in recent years and the total forest and tree cover amounts to 24% percent of the geographical area of the country. Over the past two decades progressive national forestry legislations and policies of India have transformed India’s forests into a net sink of CO2. With its focus on sustainable forest management, afforestation and regulating diversion of forest land for non-forest purpose, India plans to increase its carbon stock. Government of India’s long term goal is to increase its forest cover through a planned afforestation drive which includes number of programmes and initiatives like Green India Mission, green highways policy, financial incentive for forests, plantation along rivers, REDD-Plus & Other Policies and Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority

For the first time devolution of funds to states from the federal pool will be based on a formula that attaches 7.5 % weight to the area under forest. It takes into account the changing realities in order to rebalance the fiscal system of the country in a way that will incentivize greener distribution of resources. This initiative will give afforestation a massive boost by conditioning about USD 6.9 billion of transfers to the states based on their forest cover, which is projected to increase up to USD 12 billion by 2019-20.

For India, adaptation is inevitable and an imperative for the development process. India is facing climate change as a real issue, which is impacting some of its key sectors like agriculture and water. The adverse impacts of climate change on the developmental prospects of the country are further amplified enormously by the existence of widespread poverty and dependence of a large proportion of the population on climate sensitive sectors for livelihood. It is of immediate importance and requires action now.

In the INDCs, the country has focused on adaptation efforts, including: a) developing sustainable habitats; b) optimizing water use efficiency; c) creating ecologically sustainable climate resilient agricultural production systems; d) safeguarding the Himalayan glaciers and mountain ecosystem; and, e) enhancing carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and implementing adaptation measures for vulnerable species, forest-dependent communities and ecosystems. India has also set up a National Adaptation Fund with an initial allocation of INR 3,500 million (USD 55.6 million) to combat the adaptation needs in key sectors. This fund will assist national and state level activities to meet the cost of adaptation measures in areas that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

India’s climate actions have so far been largely financed from domestic resources. India already has ambitious climate action plans in place. Preliminary domestic requirements to implement national climate plans add upto more than USD 2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2030.Substantial scaling up these plans would require greater resources. Developing countries like India are resource constrained and are already spending enormous amounts on climate change, . Implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation actions would require domestic and new & additional funds from developed countries in view of the resource required and the resource gap.

Urgent efforts to reduce GHG emissions need to take place against the backdrop of a growing energy demand and urbanisation in India. With the responsibility of lifting around 360 million people out of poverty and raising the standard of living of an even greater number of people, technology is the only powerful solution for countries like India that can simultaneously address climate change and development needs. Technology development and transfer and capacity-building are key to ensuring adequate development and deployment of clean-technologies. The technology gap between rich and poor countries remains enormous and the capacity of developing economies to adopt new technology needs to be enhanced. Enhanced action on technology development and transfer will be central in enabling the full and effective implementation of India’s INDCs. Developed countries should be supportive and help in transfer of technology, remove barriers, create facilitative IPR regime, provide finance, capacity building support and create a global framework for Research & Development on clean coal and other technologies.”

Where they waited for rain in 2015

September 18, 2015 by Climate portal editor 1 Comment

With two weeks of the June to September monsoon remaining in 2015, one of the end-of-season conclusions that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has spoken of is that four out of ten districts in the country has had less rainfall than normal.

This overview is by itself alarming, but does not aid state governments and especially line ministries plan for coming months, particularly for agriculture and cultivation needs, water use, the mobilisation of resources for contingency measures, and to review the short- and medium-term objectives of development programmes.

The detailed tabulation provided here is meant to provide guidance of where this may be done immediately – in the next two to four weeks – and how this can be done in future.

The table lists 100 districts each of which have readings 15 weeks of rainfall variation – the numbers are not rainfall in millimetres (mm) but the variation in per cent from the long-term normal for that district for that week. The colour codes for each district’s week cell are the same as those used for the new 11-grade rainfall categorisation.

The districts are chosen on the basis of the size of their rural populations (calculated for 2015). Thus Purba Champaran in Bihar, Bhiwani in Haryana, Rewa in Madhya Pradesh and Viluppuram in Tamil Nadu are the districts in those states with the largest rural populations.

In this way, the effect of rainfall variability, from Week 1 (which ended on 3 June) to Week 15 (which ended on 9 September), in the districts with the largest rural populations can be analysed. Because a large rural population is also a large agricultural population, the overall seasonal impact on that district’s agricultural output can also be inferred.

The distribution of the districts is: six from Uttar Pradesh; five each from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal; four each from Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala; three from Uttarakhand; two from Himachal Pradesh; one each from Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

Using the new 11-grade rainfall categorisation, a normal rainweek is one in which the rainfall is between +10% more and -10% less for that week. The overview for this group of 100 districts, only 11 have had five or more normal weeks of rain out of 15 weeks. In alarming contrast, there are 77 districts which have had three or fewer normal weeks of rain – that is, more than three-fourths of these most populous districts. Half the number (51 districts) have had two, one or no normal weeks of rain. And 22 of these districts have had only one or no normal weeks of rain.

From this group of 100 most populous (rural population) districts Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and Nagaon in Assam have had the most deficit rainweeks, tallying 13, out of the 15 tabulated so far. There are ten districts which have had 12 deficit rainweeks out of 15 and they are (in decreasing order of rural population): Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Pune and Jalgaon (Maharashtra), Surguja (Chhattisgarh), Panch Mahals and Vadodara (Gujarat), Firozpur (Punjab), Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Hoshiarpur (Punjab) and Mewat (Haryana).

– Rahul Goswami

Lessons of monsoon 2015 for district India

September 16, 2015 by Climate portal editor 2 Comments

By our conventional method of reckoning the adequacy of the 2015 monsoon, this is a year that is amongst the most deficient in rain over a period of 20 years. The monsoon season began late, compared with its usual onset, and apart from a few sustained heavy spells in a few locations, has been less than adequate and also less than normal in every one of our 36 meteorological sub-divisions.

When after eight weeks of the conventional monsoon season it became evident that a combination of factors was causing weak and erratic rainfall, that is when the central and state governments needed to place on alert the regions that were already facing rainfall deficits. At this point, when we have the evidence provided by data for 15 weeks of the monsoon season (until 9 September), every week from early August onwards that passed without such a declaration is a week of preparation and coping lost.

In this commentary, I have described the advantages of using a new methodology that grades rainfall adequacy at the level of the district, to a degree that is very much finer than the five categories of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which are: normal, excess, deficient, scanty and no rain. The outputs from this methodology (illustrated and described here) are designed to: (1) alert national food and agriculture administrators to impending food insecurity conditions; (2) alert national water resources administrators to impending water scarcities; (3) alert line departments of state ministries and district collectorates to the build up of climatological distress at the district level so that contingency measures can be taken.

Over the conventional season (1 June to 30 September) the inadequacy of rainfall in 2015 is revealed at a glance by the weekly rain report. It makes for a very alarming picture and shows that state administrations and especially district authorities should, by the sixth week which ended on 8 July, have made arrangements to prepare for below-normal rains. In the weekly rain report, each vertical bar corresponds to a week of districts categorised into eleven grades. This provides a weekly national barometer of the number of districts that are in the lower and upper (severely below and above normal rainfall) categories during a given week.

Such a weekly rainfall adequacy report is able to quickly put a stop to the recent tendency of administrations, the media and all those who must manage natural resources (particularly our farmers), to think in terms of an overall seasonal ‘deficit’ or an overall seasonal ‘surplus’. This ‘seasonal’ view must be abandoned because demands for water are not cumulative – they are made several times a day, and become more or less intense according to a cropping calendar, which in turn is influenced by the characteristics of a river basin and of a corresponding agro-ecological zone, and the rural and urban populations in a district.

The difference between the IMD five-grade assessment and the eleven-grade categorisation of rainfall becomes immediately apparent when a comparison is made for any given week. The data source is the same – the weekly tabulation compiled by the IMD’s Hydromet Division (which from this monsoon season provides the data sheets and detailed maps on its ‘customised rainfall information system’, or CRIS, website).

Week 11 of the monsoon season, which is the week until 12 August, provides such an example. Under the five-grade IMD scale, there were 114 districts with normal rain (from -19% to +19%). Under the 11-grade new categorisation, the middle grade is -10% to +10%, and included 66 districts. Under the five-grade IMD scale districts with below normal rainfall fall under deficient (-20% to -59%) or under scanty (-60% to -99%) and for this week the number of districts respectively were 155 and 223. Under the 11-grade new categorisation, there are four grades for below-normal rainfall that is -20%.

Thus while the ‘deficient’ grade includes 155 districts, under the 11-grade system there are 150 districts distributed between two grades – 84 and 66, but we see that a larger number of districts fall in the more severe of the two grades. The signal to be derived from this, at the state and districts administration level, is that if a district remains for two to three weeks at a grade, then contingency measures must be reviewed, readied or rolled out. This is a decision that becomes considerably easier with the 11-grade system when compared with the existing five-grade system.

In the same way, the week by week tabulation of districts under the 11-grade system reveals trends and patterns that are not visible under the existing IMD five-grade assessment. The table shows the distribution of districts by grade across weeks. In each week, the two grades that account for the largest number of districts are highlighted red. We see that for the the first five rain weeks – week ending 3 June to week ending 1 July – the +81% and above grade was one of the top two populated grades. This occurred once more for Week 7, ending 15 July. For the next eight rain weeks – ending 22 July to ending 9 September – the top two populated grades have been in the rainfall grades of -41% to -60%, -61% to -80% and -81% and less. At the country level, this starkly underlines the seriousness of the rainfall deficit.

The uses to which we have put available climatic observations no longer suit an India which is learning to identify the impacts of climate change. Until 2002, the monsoon season was June to September, there was an assessment in May of how well (or not) the monsoon could turn out.

The India Meteorology Department has added computational and analytical resources furiously over the last decade. The new research and observational depth is complemented by the efforts of a Ministry of Earth Sciences which has channelled the copious output from our weather satellites, under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and which is interpreted by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), to serve meteorological needs.

The IMD, with 559 surface observatories, 100 Insat satellite-based data collection platforms, an ‘integrated agro-advisory service of India’ which has provided district-level forecasts since 2008, a High Performance Computing System commissioned in 2010 (whose servers run at Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Guwahati, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad and New Delhi) intelligently consumes an astonishing amount of numerical data every hour.

Over the last four years, more climate and weather ‘products’ (as the IMD system calls them) based on this data and their interpretations have been released via the internet into the public domain. These are reliable, timely (some observation series have even three-hour intervals), and valuable for citizen and administrator alike.

Even so, the IMD’s framing of how its most popular measures are categorised is no longer capable of describing what rain – or the absence of rain – affects our districts. These popular measures are distributed every day, weekly and monthly in the form of ‘departures from normal’ tables, charts and maps. The rain adequacy categories are meant to guide alerts and advisories.

These number four: ‘normal’ is rainfall up to +19% above a given period’s average and also down to -19% from that same average, ‘excess’ is +20% rain and more, ‘deficient’ is -20% to -59%, ‘scanty’ is -60% to -99%, and ‘no rain’ is -100%. These categories can mislead more than they inform, for the difference between an excess of +21% and an excess of +41% can be the difference between water enough to puddle rice fields and a river breaking its banks to ruin those fields.

In today’s concerns that have to do with the impacts of climate change, with the increasing variability of the monsoon season, and especially with the production of food crops, the IMD’s stock measurement ‘product’ is no longer viable. It ought to have been replaced at least a decade ago, for the IMD’s Hydromet Division maintains weekly data by meteorological sub-division and by district. This series of running records compares any given monsoon week’s rainfall, in a district, with the long period average (a 50-year period). Such fineness of detail must be matched by a measuring range-finder with appropriate interpretive indicators. That is why the ‘no rain’, ‘scanty’, ‘deficient’, ‘normal’ or ‘excess’ group of legacy measures must now be replaced. In its place an indicator of eleven grades translates the trends, patterns and messages in IMD’s district-level rainfall data into meaningful and actionable signals.

– Rahul Goswami

Notes

The new 11-grade indicator for assessing weekly rainfall departures in districts uses the same data IMD releases into the public domain, but provides dramatically more useful guidance. This yields the detailed reading required to alert state administrations to drought, drought-like and potential flood conditions. The modified methodology adapts the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s ‘Global Information and Early Warning System’ employment of 11 grades.

The weekly tallies of rainfall distribution for meteorological sub-divisions and for states are no longer able to signal administrative action and must be replaced with district-scale and (by 2016 monsoon) urban-scale assessments. The ability of the new 11-grade methodology to provide early warnings of climatic trauma in districts is now clear, and state administrations can respond to growing climatological distress in a targeted manner. Districts and blocks need to be supplied rainfall trends – and not only distribution data – that help farmers and administrators alike better plan for rainfall variability.

An 8th century moral for climate dialogue

September 4, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Prime Minister Narendra Modi employed an event from the life of Sri Adi Shankarachaya, the late 8th century spiritual master, to emphasise the importance of dialogue in finding ways to deal with climate change and also problems that are international in scope, such as conflict and the need for environmental consciousness.

Modi said this at the inauguration in New Delhi of ‘Samvad’, the Global Hindu-Buddhist Initiative on Conflict Avoidance and Environment Consciousness. Amongst those who listened to his address were: the Most Venerable Sayadaw Dr Asin Nyanissara, Founder Chancellor of the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Myanmar; Her Excellency Mrs Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the former President of Sri Lanka; Minoru Kiuchi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan; and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The Prime Minister said that the themes chosen for the symposium – avoiding conflicts, moving towards environmental consciousness and free and frank dialogue – “may appear independent but they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are mutually dependent and supportive”. Calling climate change a pressing global challenge, the PM said a response to climate change calls for collective human action.

“The Buddhist tradition, in all of its historical and cultural manifestations, encourages greater identification with the natural world because from a Buddhist perspective nothing has a separate existence,” he said. “The impurities in the environment affect the mind, and the impurities of mind also pollute the environment. In order to purify the environment, we have to purify the mind.”

He pointed out that ethical values of personal restraint in consumption and environmental consciousness are deeply rooted in Asian philosophical traditions, especially in Hinduism and Buddhism which along with other faiths such as Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism have undertaken greater responsibility to protect the environment. “Hinduism and Buddhism with their well-defined treatises on Mother Earth can help examine the changes in approach that need to be made.”

Modi said that the present generation has the responsibility of holding in trust the rich natural wealth for future generations. “The issue is not merely about climate change; it is about climate justice,” he said. He spoke of the need to shift from an ideological approach to a philosophic one. “The essence of philosophy is that it is not a closed thought, while ideology is a closed one. So philosophy not only allows dialogue but it is a perpetual search for truth through dialogue.”

Advocating dialogue which produces no anger or retribution, Modi said that one of the greatest examples of such dialogue was the one between Adi Sankaracharya and Mandana Mishra, a debate whose significance has educated and edified many generations of Indians. The PM related that Adi Sankaracharya wanted to establish through dialogue and debate with the highest authority on ritualism that rituals were not necessary for attaining ‘mukti’, whereas Mandana Mishra wanted to prove that Sankara was wrong in dismissing rituals.

“This was how, in ancient India, debates on sensitive issues between scholars avoided such issues being settled in streets. Adi Sankara and Mandana Mishra held a debate and Sankara won. But the more important point is not the debate itself but how was the debate was conducted. It is a fascinating story that will ever remain one of the highest forms of debate for all times for humanity,” he said.

A district lab for solar in India

August 12, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

A 5MW grid-connected solar power plant in Jodhpur district, Rajasthan. Photo: MNRE

In the district of Chitradurga, Karnataka, at the edge of the town of Challakere, stands a project run by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISC) which is a test array for concentrated solar power. Rows of shallow parabolic troughs, made of specially coated aluminum, stretch for more than 300 metres. Above them are water pipes set to catch sunlight reflected from the troughs. When the project begins operation in a few weeks, the water in the pipes will be heated to 200 °C. The hot water will go to a heat exchanger attached to a small turbine that will produce 100 kilowatts of electricity.

A part of the Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), and primarily funded by the state government of Karnataka, this small solar array will be used to test various reflective materials and heat-transfer fluids (including, for instance, molten salt in addition to water) from multiple manufacturers. Dozens of small wireless sensors will collect data and send it via the Internet to a dashboard at IISC, where it can be analysed and catalogued. The objective is to find the combinations of components that best suit conditions in India.

The Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), co-led by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), USA. The SERIIUS programme is to develop and prepare “emerging and revolutionary solar electricity technologies” which can be used by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Energy Mission and the American Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. SERIIUS is planned to accelerate the development of solar electric technologies by lowering the cost per watt of photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP).

The BJP government has pledged to create dozens of ‘ultra mega solar power parks’ of 500 megawatts and above to feed power to the national electricity grid. The government has said that energy policies such as those represented by the Challakere concentrated solar power experiment will reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 550 million tons. [This article was first published in the MIT Technology Review and can be found in full here.]

A monsoon in more than two halves

August 4, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Less rain for the remaining two months of the typical monsoon season of four months, but an overall season average that remains as it was forecast in June. This is the confusing monsoon update issued by the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO), the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

There are aspects of IMD’s treatment of the monsoon season that need correction in our view. One is the long range forecast and its updates. Specific to this update, we are at the halfway stage of what is typically considered the four month monsoon (this too needs revision, as April and May rains were not the usual ‘unseasonal’ passing showers). However, any downward revision of the rainfall average for August and September ought to be an overall downward revision of the season, particularly as June-July have seen very uneven rain.

Consider the highlights of the updated monsoon forecast:

* Quantitatively, the rainfall over the country as a whole during the second half of the season (August to September) is likely to be 84% of LPA with a model error of ±8%.
* The rainfall during August is likely to be 90 ± 9% of LPA as was forecasted in June.
* The season (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be 88% of LPA with a model error of ±4% as was forecasted in June.

We make our criticism constructively, for a significant amount of the material India Climate Portal puts out through our website and our twitter account is taken from the public products released by IMD, ISRO and the Ministry of Earth Sciences, and we fully appreciate the quality of work and commitment of these agencies.

The national mean rainfall (“country as a whole”, as the IMD forecasts call it) must be abandoned as it does not represent the meteorological diversity of a very large country. Each of the 36 met sub-divisions is affected in different ways by the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean dipole, the Madden-Julian Oscillation and other hemispheric phenomena.

There is no need for this simplification, which in fact achieves the opposite of timely accuracy.
The media in particular (television and radio, print, online) look for an overall message and, without guidance from authorities, picks up ‘top line’ messages that are of little or no use at the district and taluka level, and also for towns and cities. The question for IMD is rather: how will variability in monsoon together with the strengthening El Nino affect local outlooks for August to October. That is why we advocate monthly outlooks for the 36 met sub-divisions, to begin in May and to run until October (that is, half the year and not a third of the year), primarily to prepare local administrations for all possible scenarios.

There is no reason why this cannot be the approach. The Ministry of Earth Sciences coordinates the observation network (satellites included, and our agencies ISRO and NRSC are heavily involved), the IMD uses these data together with a very extensive network of weather stations all over India. The output is excellent quality and in the public domain. Because the meteorological services in India have historically been designed to aid and guide agriculture and cultivation, the agri-met bulletins, alerts and products are copious. Hence IMD/MoES listens to the needs of the agricultural departments and, more recently, disaster management agencies. Unfortunately, the interface with public is still minimal, which this central government can also easily remedy.

Two years of India’s weather watcher

July 28, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

We wish Insat-3D a very happy second birthday and warmly congratulate the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on this anniversary.

Insat-3D completed two successful years in orbit on 26 July 2015. The Advanced Weather Satellite is designed for enhanced meteorological observations and monitoring of land and ocean surfaces for weather forecasting and disaster warning. Insat-3D is the first Indian geostationary satellite equipped with instruments that provide frequent good quality atmospheric profiles (temperature, humidity) over the Indian landmass and adjoining areas.

Thanks to the coordination between ISRO and the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), we at India Climate Portal make heavy and frequent use of the many observational products, all free in the public domain, to inform you about weather and climate.

Insat-3D provides us high quality observations for monitoring and predicting of weather events as well as studying our climate. The advanced ‘Imager’ and ‘Sounder’ on the satellite provide a wide range of atmospheric products such as cloud coverage images, atmospheric winds, sea and land surface temperatures, humidity, quantitative rainfall, earth’s radiation, atmospheric profiles, ozone, atmospheric stability parameters, fog, snow, aerosols. These products are immensely helpful in monitoring day-to-day weather and prediction of extreme events like tropical cyclone, thunderstorm, cloud burst and heat waves.

The ‘Imager’ has completed 25,733 scans and ‘Sounder’ has completed 14,866 scans until the end of May 2015. The Insat-3D spacecraft was dedicated to the country at the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NCMC), India Meteorological Department (IMD), New Delhi on 15 January 2014. An indigenously designed and developed Insat-3D Meteorological Data Processing System processes all data transmitted by the Imager and Sounder. The data archival and dissemination is through IMD, New Delhi and the Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre (MOSDAC, at Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad).

A number of Insat-3D observations and derived products are being used in models operated by national weather prediction agencies like the IMD and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Prediction (NCMRWF). Moreover, the European Centrer for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMET) plan to use Insat-3D derived data in their global models.

As always, the ISRO family, staff, engineers, scientists and technicians excel at what they do best. In tandem with the committed and dilligent meteorologists of the IMD, they have given us free information, as good as the best the world can offer, so that we understand our Bharat better.

Health now part of PM’s Council on Climate Change

July 21, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change has included a new Mission on Climate Change and Health. A National Expert Group on Climate Change and Health has been constituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to address the issues related to adverse effects of climate change on human health.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there is increasing concern in India over the effects of climate change on human health. Climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health and weather events such as storms, floods, cyclones amplify the spread of vector-borne diseases, and the spread of food- and water-borne diseases.

There are complex interactions between both causes and effects. Ecological processes, such as impacts on biodiversity and changes in disease vectors, and social dynamics, can amplify these risks. Graphic: Lancet

Work under this new mission is expected to complement running initiatives such as the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS). This programme focuses on prevention through awareness generation, behavior and life-style changes, early diagnosis and treatment of persons with high levels of risk factors and their referral to higher facilities for appropriate management. Funding is provided for human resources, infrastructure, early screening, and treatment as well as for Information, Education & Communication (IEC) activities.

India and China suffer over USD 1.89 trillion annually in terms of the value of lives lost and ill health caused from air pollution, according to a major recent report which has underlined how climate change threatens to undermine half a century of progress in global health.

An overview of the links between greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and health. Social responses also ameliorate some risks through adaptive actions. Graphic: Lancet

The analysis by the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change concluded that the benefits to health resulting from slashing fossil fuel use are so large that tackling global warming also presents the greatest global opportunity to improve people’s health in the 21st century. The Commission’s work was supported by the UN World Health Organisation.

The current trajectory, of average global temperature warming by 4 Celsius has very serious and potentially catastrophic effects for human health and human survival. The Commission said this must be seen as a medical emergency. The comprehensive analysis sets out the direct risks to health, including heatwaves, floods and droughts, and indirect – but no less deadly – risks, including air pollution, spreading diseases, famines and mental ill-health. A rapid phase-out of coal from the global energy mix is among the commission’s top recommendations, given the millions of premature deaths from air pollution this would prevent.

“The effects of climate change are being felt today, and future projections represent an unacceptably high and potentially catastrophic risk to human health,” said the report. “The implications of climate change for a global population of 9 billion people threatens to undermine the last half century of gains in development and global health. The direct effects of climate change include increased heat stress, floods, drought, and increased frequency of intense storms, with the indirect threatening population health through adverse changes in air pollution, the spread of disease vectors, food insecurity and under-nutrition, displacement, and mental ill health.”

India pushes solar target up to 100 GW

June 18, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The Union Cabinet has decided that India’s solar power capacity target under the National Solar Mission is to be dramatically revised upwards to reach 100,000 MW (or 100 GW) by 2022. The new solar target of 100 GW is expected to abate over 170 million tonnes of CO2 over its life cycle.

In the first phase, the Government of India is to provide capital subsidy to promote solar capacity addition in the country. This capital subsidy will be provided for rooftop solar projects in various cities and towns for projects to be developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and for decentralized generation through small solar projects.

Solar power projects are also to be developed using what the government calls a “bundling mechanism” together with thermal power with investments envisaged to come from large public sector undertakings and also from independent power producers. State governments meanwhile have also come out with state-specific solar policies to promote solar capacity addition.

The statement by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has said: “Solar power can contribute to the long term energy security of India, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels that puts a strain on foreign reserves and the ecology as well.” The solar manufacturing sector in India will benefit with this long term trajectory of solar capacity addition.

This scaling up plan for solar power has a target of 40 GW through decentralised solar power generation in the form of grid connected rooftop projects. Coordination is required, says the central government, so that the land areas required for the largest solar farms are unculturable land, for solar photo-voltaic units to be encouraged, and for large government buildings to be identified for rooftop solar projects, for the Ministry of Urban Development to make mandatory the provision of roof-top solar and 10% generation of renewable energy (presumably per building unit).

Financial incentives envisaged include giving the status of ‘infrastructure’ for solar projects, raising tax-free solar bonds, including roof-top solar units within housing loans provided by scheduled banks. It is also foreseen that amendments to the Electricity Act will be needed so that renewable purchase obligations and renewable generation obligations can be enforced.

The National Solar Mission was begun in 2009 with an initial target for grid-connected solar projects of 20,000 MW by 2022. In the last two to three years, the sector has witnessed rapid development with installed solar capacity increasing from 18 MW to about 3,800 MW during 2010-15. The price of solar energy has come down significantly from Rs 17.90 per unit in 2010 to under Rs 7 per unit today.

Earth, sea, sky, El Niño

June 17, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Eight-and-a-half degrees north of the equator is where the peninsula of India meets the ocean. Our country stretches across 29 degrees of latitude but it is in the vast watery realm south of Kanyakumari that the Indian summer monsoon is brewed, slowly and inevitably. Over twice as many lines of latitude stretches the Indian Ocean, its equatorial belt and then its southern reaches, which continue into the deep and icy girdles of water around Antarctica.

From this vast aqueous quarter-planet the vapours are gathered, and these swirls of airborne water then look for the winds to transport them, first towards the mid-southern latitudes (Madagascar lies astride these, but they are are still a full ten degrees south of the lower coasts of Java) and then in the equatorial trough that spins like a motor. From here these enormous masses of water – half again the size of India at times – are hurled as if in slow motion towards our western coast.

And so to gauge imperfectly whether the wind lords of the farther Indian Ocean have decided to be kind to us we rely nowadays on our eyes in the sky, our weather satellites. What they tell us now is coded in electronic chirps made intelligible by the meteorologists and climatologists of the Indian Meteorological Department, the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting.

Our Indian summer monsoon is amongst the most complex of the planet’s earth-sea-sky interactions. We are told by the scientists, when they disengage from their equations, that the land retains a shorter climate ‘memory’ than the ocean. We are introduced to meridonal termperature gradients and seasonal migration of the inter-tropical convergence zone.

There is an abundance of exotic nomenclature: the Mascarene High, the orographic influence of the East African Highlands, the momentum of the Somali Jet, the ventilation effect of poleward precipitation. And then there is the hot star of the equatorial deeps, El Niño himself, whose domain is the central Pacific and who, when he awakes, demands that the equatorial Indian Ocean obey. He has awoken this year, but the ocean named after us is as unruly as ever.

When will El Niño’s whip really crack? The best models of the climate scientists cannot truly tell us. They and their teraflop calculating machines can only posit what is measured, and what remains unmeasured is still far greater. What we do however know about El Niño is that he does tend to suppress the monsoon. But this year’s El Niño may not resemble one of an earlier year, for where El Niño arises and rules is as important as when. Where the ocean surface warms up (several thousand kilometres parallel to the equator, several hundred kilometres wide) unusually strong rising air flows result.

When these flows descend (as they eventually must) they are generally dry and stable, and so the opposite of conditions needed for or monsoon rains. If they descend far away from India (as happened in 1997-98 when they dropped back into the eastern Pacific) our ocean will deliver and our monsoon will roll in. If they descend in the middle of the Pacific (which happened in 2002) our monsoon will resent the interference and hide. But El Niño is awake and pacing the Pacific. We must hope he does not look too far westwards. (RG)