LADAKH, India, Sep 24 2013 (IPS) – The Ladakh of today is a different world from the one Skarma Namgiyal remembers as a child. Back then, he had taken for granted the breathtaking beauty of its landscape, the purity of the cold mountain air, and the sweet taste of water in its streams.

Today, at 47 years of age, this resident of Tukcha village in Leh district in the north of Kashmir cannot believe they are digging borewells for water, using water to flush toilets in their homes in place of the dry toilets they had been accustomed to, and having to cope with sewage flowing right up to their houses.

Climate change, booming tourism and modern practices are wreaking havoc in this high altitude cold desert in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state. The average elevation in Ladakh is 11,000 ft above sea level and temperatures swing between minus 35 degrees Celsius in winters to 35 degrees in summer. Annual rainfall in the region is less than four inches.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/09/ladakh-invites-new-scarcities/

Chennai: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) expects a normal to near normal northeast (NE) monsoon season for Tamil Nadu this year.

Speaking to reporters, Dr Y. E. A. Raj, deputy director general of meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai said the models were very unclear and IMD expects the monsoon to fall in the normal category.

The state usually receives an average rain of 44 cm during NE monsoon season, which is its main rainfall season. The season sets in around October 20.

According to Dr Raj, after eight good years of NE monsoon, there was a correction last year, when the state experienced 16 per cent deficit.

“The indications of southern oscillation, which controls NE monsoon to a certain extent, have been positive, which actually is not a favourite sign for good rains this time,” he said, adding that EL Nino position has been neutral indicating neither a positive nor a negative monsoon.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130920/news-current-affairs/article/met-monsoon-forecast-promises-bountiful-north-east

n what seems to have become an annual curse, heavy monsoon rains in the eastern Himalayas, the Assam valley, West Bengal and Bangladesh have led to serious flooding in two countries. Many rivers in the Brahmaputra basin are flowing well above the danger mark.

 The flood waters of the Brahmaputra did recede in Bongaigaon and Sibsagar districts of Assam last week, but there was fresh inundation in a dozen villages in Nagaon district. Four districts in Assam continued to reel under the impact of floods on Sunday.

“Fresh inundation has occurred in 12 villages in the low lying areas of Samaguri revenue circle of Nagaon district,” Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said in its daily bulletin.

http://www.thethirdpole.net/brahmaputra-tributaries-flood-india-bangladesh/

 

The Rubber Board has lowered the natural rubber (NR) production outlook by nearly 10 per cent on account of an unprecedentedly intensive southwest monsoon and an abnormal leaf fall in traditional planting areas.

Addressing the 172nd meeting of the Rubber Board here on Wednesday, chairman Sheela Thomas said the NR production in the country during the current fiscal (2013-14) is likely to be 8,70,000 tonnes in place of the 9,60,000 tonnes projected earlier, denoting a fall of 9.37 per cent, amounting to 90,000 tonnes.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/heavy-rain-hits-natural-rubber-production-in-kerala/article5116922.ece

International treaties, environment, science and business interests converge on the use and replacement of refrigerant gases.

The issue of refrigerant gases is covered by two international agreements Montreal Protocol (MP) and the U.N. Framework Contention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The MP is meant to reduce or do away with gases that cause a hole in the ozone layer that envelopes the Earth — mostly refrigerant gases and solvents. The UNFCCC is meant to bring down emissions of greenhouse gases that warm up the planet.

Under the MP, rich countries began migrating from the earlier ozone-depleting refrigerant to costly HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons). HFCs do not cause any harm to the ozone layer but have very high potential to raise global temperature.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/the-business-of-climate-change/article5117582.ece

The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) put up a “Draft Policy on Inspection, Verification, Monitoring and the Overall Procedure relating to grant of Forest Clearances and Identification of Forests” for public comments.

The judgment presented an important opportunity to the MoEF to revamp procedures and plug loopholes, being exploited by development project promoters from both government and the corporate sectors. However, the draft policy fails to infuse new conservation ideas based on sound science and misses out on tightening forest clearance/monitoring procedures.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/missing-the-woods-for-the-greenback/article5113449.ece

Guwahati, India – He sniffs, slurps his tea, swirls and spits a jet of orangish liquid into the tumbler. “Malty, hard,” says Parag Hatibaruah, a professional tea-taster. “But not as strong, brisk and creamy as it was once,” he adds, shaking his head dismissively. Rows of teacups and packs of dried leaves are lined up neatly in the well-lit tasting room. Assam tea used to be more pungent and full-bodied and looked like tomato soup, he says, but the unwelcome transformation started 10 years ago. “Even the sheen of tealeaves is lost.” Along with waning taste, the industry is grappling with diminishing production and reduced prices. High hills and abundant rainfall made Assam state in India’s northeast the largest tea-producing region in the world. Now experts say the “ideal climate” has changed – soaring temperatures and fickle rain are choking the once-flourishing plantation industry.   http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/201398144844505310.html

This summer’s flash floods spread across the Himalayas –in India, Pakistan and Nepal – have underscored the urgent need to install early warning systems

 

 Scientists have been warning that the frequency of floods, droughts and storms will go up due to climate change. The large number of flash floods across the Hindu Kush Himalayas this summer appears to be proving their point. So how should policymakers respond right now?

Experts and activists gathered at a recent workshop held in New Delhi to discuss the worst of this year’s flash floods – in Uttarakhand – stressed the need to urgently install early warning systems so that people could get out of the way. The workshop was organised by the Times of India media group.

The experts pointed out that the entire Himalayan belt in India is prone to such disasters, especially since the weather has started behaving quite erratically. “The disaster in Uttarakhand was caused by floods. Did we have early warning systems? No we didn’t have,” said Vijay Kumar, operations manager of Danish Hydraulics Institute. He added that the losses could have been minimised if there was a warning system in place.

 

http://www.thethirdpole.net/himalayas-needs-many-disaster-warning-systems/

As the threat of climate change slowly becomes a reality, poor women will be the largest social group to feel the heat.

Though the impact, in the form of severe droughts, heavy rains and flooding, is not limited to any particular group, what causes more concern is the additional burden it brings upon poor women in rural areas. The issue for them could start with longer trudges in search of water, something that eventually could impact their health.

The impact on poor, rural women was highlighted by Nagraj Adve of India Climate Justice Network, a collective of social movements, trade unions and like-minded individuals, at a panel discussion on climate change here on Saturday.

 

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/climate-change-can-impact-poor-womens-health/article5104630.ece?ref=sliderNews

 

(Reuters) – Monsoon rains should continue to be weaker than average again next week, suggesting an early end to the season, weather officials said on Thursday, but with summer crops well established, there should be little impact on harvests.

The monsoon, crucial for the 55 percent of Indian farmland that does not have irrigation, brought the heaviest rains in nearly two decades during its first half this year, fanning hopes for bumper harvests.

 

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/09/05/india-monsoon-rains-idINDEE98405X20130905