Mumbai, August 9: India has been witnessing a spate of cloudbursts, flooding and landslide disasters in high mountains of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, all pointing at untimely changes in the environment. The country has been highly impacted by Climate Change as India may face devastating effects, including killer heat waves and severe floods. The country needs urgent steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert associated risks to the population, ecosystems and economy.

What is Climate Change?

A long term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns is basically called as Climate Change. Currently the climate change is largely impacted because of human activity like burning of fossil fuels, like natural gas, oil and coal. Burning these materials releases what are called greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report titled ‘Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis’ was released on Monday stated that the heatwaves and humid heat stress will be more intense and frequent during the 21st century over South Asia. IPCC in its latest report has indicated that the Glacial retreat in the Hindu Kush Himalayas; compounding effects of sea-level rise and intense tropical cyclones leading to flooding; an erratic monsoon; and intense heat stress are likely to impact India in recent years.  Climate Change Warning: IPCC Says It's Widespread, Rapid & Intensifying

Highlights of IPCC report:

  • Climate change is intensifying the water cycle. This brings more intense rainfall and associated flooding, as well as more intense drought in many regions.

  • It is affecting rainfall patterns. In high latitudes, rainfall is likely to increase, while it is projected to decrease over large parts of the subtropics.

  • Changes to monsoon rain are expected, which will vary by region.

  • Coastal areas will see continued sea level rise throughout the 21st century, contributing to more frequent and severe coastal flooding in low-lying areas and coastal erosion.

  • Extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.

  • Further warming will amplify permafrost thawing, and the loss of seasonal snow cover, melting of glaciers and ice sheets.

  • Changes to the ocean, including warming, more frequent marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and reduced oxygen levels have been clearly linked to human influence.

  • These changes affect both ocean ecosystems and the people that rely on them, and they will continue throughout at least the rest of this century.

  • For cities, some aspects of climate change may be amplified, including heat (since urban areas are usually warmer than their surroundings), flooding from heavy precipitation events and sea level rise in coastal cities. World News | 5 Things to Watch for in the Latest IPCC Report on Climate Science

The IPCC report has also flagged that the climate crisis has caused certain impacts globally which are irreversible and continue to affect us in future. Greenhouse gas emissions since 1750 have committed the global ocean to future warming, it said adding that based on multiple lines of evidence, upper ocean stratification (vertical changes in sea water density), ocean acidification (decrease in ph value of oceans) and ocean deoxygenation (low oxygen zones in the oceans) will continue to increase in the 21st century.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 09, 2021 07:02 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).