Rising trend of short but intense spells of rainfall is making usable water scarce in India

Archita Bhatta

Rising trend of short but intense spells of rainfall is making usable water scarce in India

If you decide to ignore the news above as freak incidents you make a mistake. They are the order now. They are happening repeatedly all over the country. Farmers do not know why. Nor do they know how to tide over the crop-destroying downpours. Scientists and meteorologists have an answer to the first question. The root cause is global warming, they argue.
In 1997, K J Henessey, scientist at the Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, used mathematical calculations and empirical evidence to predict climate warming would cause intense rainfall and increase risk of floods. It proved true for India.

Intense rainfall, above 150 mm a day, increased by 10 per cent per decade in the past 50 years, said scientists from Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (iitm). The team led by the Institute director B N Goswami published their findings in the US journal Science on December 1, 2006.