Pakistan Archives - The India Climate Observatory

Visualising the December ice-box

January 2, 2016 by Climate portal editor 1 Comment

Between 10 and 15 December 2015, minimum temperatures all over northern India and Pakistan, in particular in the Hindu Kush and western Himalaya (including the state of Jammu and Kashmir) dropped sharply. The cold and strong north-westerly winds blowing in from the distant Central Asian region during this period of December deepened the persistent chill.

This panel of the 30-day temperature charts for 40 cities shows the sudden dip all experienced from around 10 December. Original charts are from the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction and reassembled for this panel.

The cold wave was also experienced in the north-western region – including Rajasthan, Gujarat and adjacent north Maharashtra as far south as Mumbai. From 10 December until 27 and 28 December, unusually cold conditions gripped entire agro-ecological regions – the north Gujarat plain together with the Kathiawad peninsula, the Aravalli ranges and the east Rajasthan uplands, the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, Rohilkhand and the Avadah plain, the Madhya Bharat plateau and the Bundelkhand uplands, and the Central (or Malwa) highlands.

These 30-day temperature charts shows the sudden dip in minimum for 40 cities from 9 and 10 December, and the setting in of cold conditions which continued for two weeks thereafter. During this time, the higher reaches of Kashmir Valley received snowfall, New Delhi recorded minimums of around 5 Celsius with the maximums being two to three degrees below normal, Amritsar in Punjab was at 2 Celsius while Ludhiana and Patiala recorded between 4 and 6 Celsius. Churu in Rajasthan recorded a low of 3 Celsius and Mt Abu, at an altitude of 1,200 metres was just below 0 Celsius. State capital Jaipur recorded a minimum 6 Celsius.

How El Niño plans to hijack monsoon 2015

May 26, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Whether the monsoon starts off on time, whether the June, July, August and September rainfall averages are met, and whether the seasonal pattern of the monsoon is maintained are expectations that must now be set aside.

According to the Climate Prediction Center’s ENSO probability forecast, there is a 90% chance that El Niño conditions will prevail through June to August of the northern hemisphere and a more than 80% percent chance El Niño will last throughout all of 2015.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences El Niño/La Nina, Indian Ocean Dipole Update (10 May 2015)

What this means, especially when record warm global atmospheric temperatures (because we in South Asia and our neighbours in East Asia have continued burned coal as if the resulting CO2 and soot simply doesn’t exist) are being set, is the remaining months of 2015 – the monsoon period included – will bring strange, dangerous and extreme weather. We have already seen that over the last week, with the death toll from the heat wave having crossed 550.

For the first time since 1998 – the year of the strongest El Niño on record, which played havoc with the
world’s weather patterns and was blamed for 23,000 deaths worldwide – ocean temperatures in all five El Niño zones have risen above 1 degree Celsius warmer than normal at the same time. That is read by climatologists and ocean scientists as presaging an El Niño that is moderately strong to strong. The forecast models updated in May are now unanimous that El Niño is going to keep strengthening through the rest of 2015. (See also the official forecast from the USA’s government climate science agency.)

El Niño’s home is in the tropical eastern Pacific, but we in India need to watch the waters to our south very closely. New research published in the journal Nature Geoscience has examined records going back to 1950 and noticed that Indian Ocean absorbed heat at a low level until 2003. Thereafter, the excess oceanic heat in the Pacific Ocean found its way through the Indonesian archipelago and into the Indian Ocean. This is the gigantic reservoir of watery heat that is going to dictate terms to our summer monsoon, or what our school textbooks call the south-west monsoon.

It is a worry for the entire South Asian region – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Maldives, Burma, Afghanistan and Bhutan. That is why when the Forum on Regional Climate Monitoring-Assessment-Prediction for Asia (FOCRA) issued its seasonal outlook for June to August 2015 it predicted weaker than normal Indian summer and East Asian monsoons. Precipitation over land is influenced by external factors such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (the ENSO), the ‘Indian Ocean Dipole’, the ‘Arctic Oscillation’, and so on.

There may be a “timely onset” of the monsoon, as the venerable IMD is used to saying, but that doesn’t mean our troubles are over. Far from it.

Climate measures that matter

October 8, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

India has been saying during the last several international negotiations about climate change that our country, like other ‘developing’ countries, has a right to development. What this means is India has officially said our country will continue to burn coal and petroleum products in quantities that contribute to India emitting 1.954 million tons of CO2 a year (this figure is for 2012).

The ‘developed’ world (mostly countries in western Europe and North America) point to this large quantity and demand that India (and China, which emits very much more) do something to halt this rise and to decrease it. India’s response has been – recognise what you have done from the time of the Industrial Revolution and then we’ll resume talking.

This is unlikely to result in any constructive recognition of all that is linked. A country’s total emissions is one part of the ‘development’ picture and others are at least as important. There are also tons of CO2 emitted per capita (India has often said that its per capita emissions are far below those of the West). And there is per capita consumption of electricity (which is still mainly generated by burning coal).

That is why, when we look at the relationship between these three measures for a country, and between countries for any one of these three measures, we see connections that are otherwise missed due to a focus on a single measure. Our diagram, ‘Climate Measures that Matter’, helps explain these connections. It can be used as an aide to understanding better India’s position at climate negotiations, and provides much-needed context to the arguments about a country’s total emissions and its per capita emissions. [See the statement by Minster for Environment Prakash Javadekar, at the United Nations Climate Summit 2014.]

This diagram is an aide to understanding better India’s position at climate negotiations. It provides much-needed context to the arguments about a country’s total emissions and its per capita emissions.

The country and energy data used in this diagram is for the latest year which is 2012. The source for the data is the International Energy Agency’s ‘Key World Energy Statistics 2014’ . This selection of countries compares countries of South Asia, East Asia, the larger economies of the OECD, the BRICS, other European countries, and countries of the Middle East. For each of the three measures, the size of the circles are relative to each other.

[The full size image is available here (png. 266kb). This diagram is distributed under a creative commons licence (2014) by the India Climate Portal. Reproduce only with full attribution.]

One could argue that the relationship between three measures for any country shows its responsibilities towards curbing the use of fossil fuels both nationally and individually, and towards capping electricity use. For example, per capita electricity use in a number of the countries shown in the diagram is seven or eight times more, and even ten times more and above, than India’s use.

Our South Asian neighbours – Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – have by all three measures relatively small global impacts. The size of our population and the depth of our industry and economy however has made India the third largest emitter of CO2 (after China and the USA). But if India seeks some sort of ‘parity’ in electricity use – or if India sees the low per capita CO2 emissions as a ‘development’ gap – our total contribution to CO2 emissions will only rise faster, hurting the environment that we share with our neighbours.

The diagram helps display some of the most glaring and conspicuous differences between countries’ impacts on the atmosphere and ecosphere. These differences can be taken to mean fuel use and consumption must be halted and stringently curbed, whether or not the Kyoto Protocol and a successor treaty exist. That would be the way of acting responsibly for a country. [See the text of the Joint Statement issued at the 18th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change in August 2014.]

These differences can also mean that the ‘developed’ countries recognise – as we and many ‘developing’ and ‘less developed’ countries have been reminding them repeatedly – that the way their economies and societies have functioned has caused much of the problem in the first place, and they must stop shunting the onus of responsibility onto us.

Finally, these differences should also show why being small is not being ‘poor’ and ‘less developed’. Households and families that use few kilowatts instead of many, burn few litres of fuel instead of many, are very much more responsible and environmentally balanced than others. It is the small circles in this diagram that ought to be the inspiration.

Climate Measures that Matter by India Climate Portal / Rahul Goswami is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Climate change is not the only villain

September 11, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

A woman weeps at the site of her home, devastated by floods in Kuppar village near Jammu, in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation / Ashutosh Sharma

About 200 kilometres separates Srinagar, in the valley of Kashmir in India, from the wide and flat northern plains of Pakistan’s Punjab province, the land between Gujranwala and Sialkot. The river that links these two regions, on either side of the border between two countries, is the Jhelum and its many mountain-fed tributaries. From early September, rains that are torrential in volume and frequency for the region steadily fed the streams, swelled the rivers and then rushed through the settlements and towns of northern Pakistan and India.

On both sides of the Pakistan-India border the scene is depressingly similar. The toll of the dead will not be known until the waters drain, and even then will be estimates, as they always are. Until two days ago, 220 or 230 was the number of lives reported lost in both countries. The number of lives disrupted, displaced and reduced to misery is far greater – more than 100,000 have been rescued by the Indian Army in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In Pakistan too it has been its army that has performed extraordinary feats of rescue and provided relief when every other administrative mechanism failed, but as the waters continued to gather in volume and speed, the September floods are already estimated to have affected more than a million in Pakistan.

A couple wades through a flooded road after heavy rains in Lahore, Pakistan, on 4 September 2014. Photo: Reuters / Mohsin Raza

There has been mourning and resignation, for lives lost and for homes destroyed, but there is also anger in both Pakistan’s Punjab and India’s Jammu and Kashmir. Economic need and the search for livelihoods has brought migrants into urban settlements, while older and more established households have sought to better their standards of living. Overlooked every single year, despite at least one emergency caused by natural phenomena, has been implementing the regulations needed for fast-growing settlements in flood-prone regions. Both countries have national disaster management authorities, and yet the complaint most commonly heard by those escaping floodwaters and by those seeking relief is: where was the warning and where was the help when we needed it?

The very recent history in India (the catastrophic rain and landslides in Uttarakhand in 2013) and in Pakistan (the record flooding of 2010) of natural disasters appears not to have led to the institutionalisation of a culture that is willing to learn from past misfortune. In both countries, media has reported scores of survivors praising swift and selfless action by the armed forces and at the same time condemning inaction by local and provincial authorities.

Climate change and its impacts has become a catch-all villain for the record floods and the devastation they have caused (and continue to). But amongst the complex menu of reasons for the failure of systems and responses, several others stand out in bolder relief. The encroachment by galloping urbanisation of river catchment areas, unregistered and illegal construction (both residential and commercial) along river banks and the blind conversion of wetlands into agricultural lands has, in both countries, turned historically familiar floods into fearsome deathtraps.

When the waters ebb and families can reunite, both Pakistan and India must together confront the real reasons behind the destruction and toll wrought by the floods of September 2014.

Flood waters batter North India, Pakistan

September 7, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Women and children being transported in a boat through a flooded road to a safer place during incessant rains in Srinagar. Photo: The Hindu

Four days of very heavy rain has affected districts in northern India and north-eastern Pakistan, causing damage and deaths, and leading to continuing misery in Pakistan. In Jammu and Kashmir, the death toll is 160 while in Pakistan it is 170.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Jammu on Sunday to personally review the situation in the flood-hit state after over 160 people lost their lives in the worst floods to affect Jammu and Kashmir in 60 years.

Accumulated rainfall from 2-5 September for the north India and north-eastern Pakistan regions.

Floods and landslides, due to very heavy rains, affected parts of Jammu and Kashmir while in Pakistan very heavy rains continue, causing floods in parts of Punjab and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority announced that “Very High to Exceptionally High Flood Level” is likely to continue in the Chenab and Jhelum along with their associated streams for the next two days.

On 4 September a bus, filled to capacity with 52 members of a wedding group, was on its way to Lam, around 120 km from Jammu city, when it was hit by surging waters of the Gambhir river. Only three people survived the accident.

The state capital of Srinagar also braced for major floods with the Jhelum, Kashmir’s main river, flowing more than 2.13 metres (seven feet) above the danger mark. Vast swathes of Srinagar remain inundated. The 300-km-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway also closed for traffic after two landslides in the Ramban district left hundreds of vehicles stranded. South Kashmir’s Anantnag and Kulgam districts are among the worst hit, with at least 50 villages under water.

A flooded ward in Srinagar. Photo: Waseem Andrabi / Hindustan Times

The Indian Army has evacuated 11,000 people to safety by deploying 100 columns of troops in flood-hit areas of the state. About 2,000 people have been provided food and temporary shelter in Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 100 Army columns (each column is 75-100 troops), 13 teams of Army engineers are working in the flood-affected regions of the state. The Army’s ‘Mission Sahayata’ is rescuing people trapped in flooded villages, isolated houses and multi-storied buildings in the inundated areas all over Kashmir, with tented shelter being provided to those who have lost their homes to the floodwaters.

Torrential monsoon rains have again wreaked havoc in Pakistan’s largest province Punjab and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir since 4 September. A Pakistan Meteorological Department report given to the Indus River Commission – which looks after Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers – said on September 5 that around 0.9 million cusecs (cubic feet per second, equal to over 25,000 cumecs, or cubic metres per second) of additional water was flowing down the Himalayan rivers, according to Ghulam Rasul, Chief Meteorological Officer. Rasul said the floods would have a devastating impact in Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh due to lack of preparations and absence of water management strategies.

Map of the flood-affected areas from the from European Commission Humanitarian Aid department.

However, Sindh and Punjab are expected to face severe flooding in the coming days, the Pakistan Meteorological Department warned on Sunday. A press release issued by the Meteorological Department said that water levels in the Indus River at Sukkur and Guddu Barrage are constantly increasing, and consequently, there will be severe floods on September 13 and 14 in both provinces.

Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, said at least 69 people have died in the eastern Punjab province since Thursday. He said another 48 people died in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and 11 died in northern Gilgit Baltistan province.