Are unseasonable warm weather and rains interlinked?

Nilratan Halder | Published: October 06, 2023 22:09:35

The year 2023 may be remarkable for missing one of its most cherished seasons --- Sharat (autumn) in this part of the world unless it shows up in Hemanta (late autumn) or in winter. It is more like Barsha (monsoon). It is the time when the sky reveals its deep blue colour only to be enhanced by the lazily sailing snow-white patches of clouds. The surrounding awash with sparkling morning sunshine lifts the heart to be in tune with Nature. In midday, the clarity of sunshine proves too intense to bear and it pulls at the heart as if a sad note of music is resonating in an unexpressed feeling of pain. Dew drops hang from grass blades and sheuli flower in a way becomes synonymous with Sharat because of the purity and freshness of the flower and the season's unblemished clear beauty.
All these seem to be things of the past this year. The sky remains most of the time overcast with grey or black clouds from end to end, the sun is overwhelmed by clouds or rains. What is especially concerning is that rainfalls are making records not just in this country but in its neighbourhoods as well. While record rainfalls of nine hours at a stretch inundated Rajshahi City on Thursday, the entire Kushtia district also experienced record rainfalls with the town going under knee-deep water.
Torrential rains have been reported from upstream regions also on both sides of the border. Lalmonirhat, Kurigram and Rangpur have been severely affected by the onrushing water. Already many areas are in the grip of flash floods and the bad news is that more rains are predicted. A larger and gloomier picture is that heavy rains have caused a Himalayan glacial lake in northeast India to burst its seam leading to floods in Sikkim where 14 people were left dead and 102 more were missing.
Downpours of this scale may give the mistaken impression that the year is going to be remembered for its lengthy wet season. In fact, globally the reverse picture is what may leave a permanent imprint on the population of the planet. September was the hottest month on record. Global temperature from January to September on an average was 1.4 degree Celsius higher than that of the period between 1850 and 1900. This is alarming for two reasons: first, it almost touched the 1.5C warming goal of the Paris Agreement, 2015; secondly, because, temperature records used to be broken earlier by much smaller margins, say, one-tenth of a degree. But this year the global temperature of the January-September period was 0.005C higher than the same period of nine months in 2016, the warmest ever recorded before.
There is nothing to be surprised if the two phenomena --- heat waves and the late heavy rains --- are interlinked. The El Nino which warms waters in the southern Pacific to have its influence beyond may not only cause the year to be the hottest on record but also have a role to induce heavier rains in the Himalayan range and in the tropical regions. The frequencies of natural convulsions like typhoons, cyclones, wildfires --- and may be earthquakes --- are likely to have a common cause. Climate change triggered by CO2 emissions is more likely to be responsible for the planet to heat up beyond all proportions, triggering such phenomena.
Even the rich and advanced Western nations have suffered heavy losses due to unprecedented natural calamities that relentlessly made their visitations to catch people and the authorities off-guard. In the face of such a real threat, however, the collective response has been much too inadequate so far. Leaders there have got misplaced priorities. They can overcome havocs wreaked on them but the poor nations cannot. Progress made is thwarted back.
It is exactly at this crucial juncture, there was a need for world solidarity but instead, it has went back under the leadership of the US President Joe Biden back to a new cold war era. What a vicious political strategy the US president pursued! He has overseen the price escalation of fossil fuel and stoked the war in Ukraine. The US dollar has appreciated beyond all measures following the disruption of international supply chains of commodities and poor nations have been forced to pay through their noses. Inflation and stagflation have left economies moribund, which affected even Biden's own nation but it has been more than compensated by the hugely appreciated greenback.
Post-Covid period called for humane international relations and cooperation but the nations are now desperate to survive the economic crunch. Where is the time for paying attention to green energy? It is the gift of the man in the White House to the world, not of Putin, as many would like to believe.