Climate change in northeast India

When Jatin Singh, CEO of Skymet, was planning to set up a private company that forecasts weather and provides weather solutions to power, insurance and agro sectors, he knew it won’t be easy as new challenges due to the ever changing global warming patterns are being faced every day. And this is more so in the places that are still far from being educating about weather.

‘Paradise Unexplored’, northeast India is a region with much diversity and culture. The region is quite vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate and has faced the wrath of adverse weather events in the recent past. While some say northeast India has a very low adaptability level owing to the less development there. The climate in northeast India is typically a monsoon climate. Heavy rains, floods and humid conditions throughout the day are common here.

According to the report, an increase in precipitation in 2030s will be the maximum in the Himalayan region and the Northeast region. The weather in the northeast will also see a rise in the temperature by 1.8°C to 2.1°C. Also, the number of rainy days could increase by 1-10 days with intensity of rainfall in the region to increase by 1-6 mm/day. This is cause for alarm in the region as many parts are prone to landslides and floods, which are only aggravated by heavy rainfall. This adds to the already problematic and hard to deal with flood situations the northeast every year.

Forecasters at Skymet say the climate of northeast India changing can also be proven by the amount of rainfall recorded in Cherrapunji in 2012 till the month of August ( 10,604mm approx) was already way higher than what it was in 2011 (close to 9,000mm). A great concern for the Northeast therefore also lies in the projected threat of severe malaria as climate change will lead to wetter and also warmer periods.

Jatin says, “The assessment research on the climate and the changes in the weather of northeast is a complex challenge because it includes physical, biological and socio-economic aspects too. People should be pro-active and need to be sensitized in regards to the fast changing weather of the northeast regions. The lack of suitable and adequately documented data is something that makes it too difficult to single handedly predict about the weather.”

Though one thing is clear, the climate of northeast India will definitely be impacted and people should begin to gear up for adverse weather. For this, each one of us will need to come forward to do our bit, as it is our future at stake now!

Photo by Rajkumar1220.