These days it is discussed in some reports that Global Warming may increase the chance of extreme flooding as the warming climate will hold larger quantities of moisture, which will lead to a heavier rainfall.
Report states that Delhi, India faces one of its warmest winter in 114 years. Now the weather experts predicted that the summer of 2016 is going to be more blazing one in this South Asian Continent and the people may face decline in food grains, production leading to vertical food prices, farmer suicides after crop failures, heat wave causalities etc.
No rainfall in the northeast India and sudden floods in ‘barren’ Rajasthan was some incidents which still looms in one mind. Forget it, here are some interesting facts. People are finding hail storms in UAE region and parts of Europe saw a blinding heat wave, which killed many, especially the elderly, since they just don’t know how to cope with these unpredictable extremities.
The irrefutable scientific truth is that there is an evident increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans in recent decades. Some states that the warming documented over the last 50 years is due to human activities. The increasing amount of carbon dioxide and other green house gases are the principle reasons behind the human – induced reality of global warming.
Although carbon can be reduced suddenly and naturally into the atmosphere from volcanic activity, it takes many thousands of years for it to be removed permanently by natural processes such as rock weathering. Global warming has assumed serious proportions and is causing the Greenland ice cap to disintegrate far faster than anyone has predicted. A study of the region’s massive ice – sheet, warns that sea levels may as a consequence rise more dramatically than expected. Scientists have found that many Greenland’s huge glaciers are moving at an accelerating rate – dumping twice as much ice into the sea than 5 years ago – indicating that the ice –sheet is undergoing a potentially catastrophic break up.
The term “Weather” refers to the day changes in the state of the atmosphere at a specific location. It includes variables such as temperature, humidity, windiness, cloudiness and precipitation. Climate can be defined as the average weather, but the climate of a given region is also defined by the expected year – to – year variation in the weather variables. That is two regions that have the same mean annual or seasonal temperature, but where one region experiences much greater variation from one year to the next, have different climates. The climate of a given region however depends on much more than just the atmosphere. It rather depends on all the components that interest together to form part of the climatic system.
This climate system consists of the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, cryoshere (ice and snow) and lithosphere (Earth’s crust). Each of these components influences and is influenced by others, so that they form part of a single system. The Sun in contrast, is not part of the climatic system because the climate cannot affect the Sun. Rather, the Sun is said to be the external forcing. The components of the climatic system are linked by flows of energy and matter. The energy flow occur as solar and infrared radiation, as sensible heat (heat which can be directly felt or sensed) as latent heat (related to evaporation and condensation of water vapour, or freezing and melting of ice) and through the transfer of momentum between the atmosphere and oceans. The major mass flow involves water, carbon, sulphur and nutrients such as phosphorus (P) and nitrate.
The behaviour of the climatic system depends on how these energy and mass flows change as the system changes. Thus any change in the major mass flows will lead to a disturbed climatic system and thus lead to a natural disaster. This is the time, when you can hear strange phenomenon like “DESERT INTO A SEA…” The increasing size of the ozone hole adds to the problem.
Human made green house gases are being released into the atmosphere are almost ten times faster than it was before. The more we pollute the air, the more music we are going to face.
At last, this simple brain of mine, is just left with one thought: Is it is a HUMAN MADE DISASTER or NATURE’S WRATH?
To end I quote:
“We are the birds of
the same nest,
We may wear
Different skins,
We may speak
Different languages,
We may believe in different religions,
We may belong to different cultures,
Yet we share the same
Home – OUR EARTH.
Born on the same planet
Covered by the same skies
Gazing at the same stars
Breathing the same air
We must learn to happily
Progress together
Or miserably perish together,
For human can
Live individually,
But can survive
Only collectively.”
—
(My Personal View)
Writer:
Mainak Majumdar
POLICIES AND IDEAS 