00:00So are we facing a climate emergency?
00:03Joining me now, Dr. Roxy Matthew Cole is one of India's leading climate scientists
00:07from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune.
00:10Appreciate your joining us there, doctor.
00:13Just want to understand, what we are seeing at the moment in the last couple of days
00:18is this huge torrential rainfall across the western Ghats
00:22and interestingly making up for any shortfall from what was a rather dry month of June.
00:28So we had a dry month of June, a late monsoon
00:30and now the short, sharp, heavy bursts of rain in several parts of the country.
00:36Do you see this as part of a climate emergency, part of climate changing patterns,
00:41these extreme weather conditions?
00:45You're totally right, Rajseep.
00:47In fact, we are seeing this pattern for several years, in fact, decades now.
00:53That's what our research shows.
00:54In fact, if you look at this year, we had a very weak start
00:59owing to an early, you know, riding on a climate change signal,
01:02on a global warming signal.
01:03So we had a weak start.
01:05The deficit during the month of June, the first month of the monsoon season,
01:09was about up to 40%.
01:11And the last few days, especially in the last two, three days,
01:15that deficit came down to about 17% to 20%.
01:22So, which means that we are going through a phase where we are having a monsoon
01:28with long dry spells, dry periods where there is almost no rain,
01:33and then short spells of heavy rain.
01:35And this is a very clear signature of global warming.
01:39I should say, on top of global warming,
01:41we have the effect of the Illinois and the Pacific as well,
01:43which generally weakens the monsoon winds.
01:45So we had a weak start of the monsoon.
01:48The monsoon circulation was weak.
01:50Generally, the moisture supply also was weak.
01:54But the oceans are warming.
01:55So when there are episodes, when the monsoon winds strengthen up,
02:01all that moisture from global warming dumps and pours in a few days
02:06to a few hours' time.
02:07And that's what we saw over the Western Guards, over Mumbai, parts of Maharashtra,
02:13right now happening.
02:14Even in Pune, we had heavy rain.
02:16You just mentioned Dr. El Nino,
02:19because there's been a lot of talk about El Nino across the world.
02:23This could be an El Nino year as the Pacific continues to warm.
02:27Do you see this El Nino factor affecting the monsoon this year
02:30in the July to September period?
02:32Will we now see another dry spell after having seen this torrential rain
02:38of the last few months?
02:40Some parts of North and Central India continue to have a weak monsoon.
02:45Western India getting huge rain.
02:46Are we seeing diverse extreme patterns again?
02:52Exactly.
02:53So the North and parts deficit is clearly, you know,
02:58linked to how the El Nino works.
03:00So generally, El Nino is a phenomena of warm waters
03:03over the central and east Pacific.
03:05But since the Pacific is large
03:07and the area of warm waters also is quite, you know, large in volume,
03:13it affects the ocean atmosphere interaction, the circulation,
03:17including our monsoon circulation.
03:19So the winds, the monsoon winds that should penetrate inland
03:23towards the northern belt and all,
03:26do not penetrate inland as usual, as often,
03:29during the normal years when there is no El Nino.
03:32So this time, as usual, we had a weak start.
03:37Monsoon, of course, have the wet and active phases of monsoon.
03:40The onset of monsoon itself was weak,
03:43and we saw a weak progression towards the northern belt as well.
03:46In fact, the monsoon should have covered the entire part of India by now,
03:50but it hasn't covered the northwestern parts of India
03:52and insufficiently to the northern states.
03:57You know, one of the questions that often arises, though, doctor,
03:59is that these extreme weather conditions,
04:02governments say they have faced force of nature,
04:03what can we do?
04:05Or are they man-made, as is being suggested in Wyanat,
04:08because of wanton destruction of forests,
04:10the reckless construction in ecologically sensitive areas?
04:13How much of these extreme weather conditions,
04:15like in the Western Ghats,
04:17are being caused because of what we,
04:19the humans, are doing,
04:20not necessarily acts of God or nature?
04:26Great questions, Rajdeep.
04:29The extreme rains are a result of,
04:33especially the extreme rains in the volume that we see right now
04:36are a result of global warming
04:38due to increased carbon emissions and all on a global level.
04:41But the floods, landslides,
04:43and the destruction, the disaster that we see locally
04:47are a result of, you know, local changes that we made,
04:52land use changes, development without environmental
04:56and climate assessment.
04:58And this is what we should look forward to,
05:01especially in Western Ghats,
05:03the change in forest cover,
05:08the development without considering the slope
05:12and terrain and the extreme rains over that region.
05:17And this is the same for the Himalayas as well.
05:20So we see that this increases the soil erosion,
05:23this increases the, you know,
05:26decreases the stability of the slope and the terrain,
05:29and when extreme rains due to climate change
05:31lash over that,
05:33the soil and the mountains and the hills
05:35cannot hold on anymore.
05:36It comes down as mudslide, landslide,
05:39and flash fires because there is no space
05:42for that water to sink in and be absorbed.
05:46And this is the state of our rivers as well.
05:48When that water comes downstream,
05:51we see that the rivers are squeezed or encroached.
05:54And this is the same for whether we take a city like Mumbai
05:57or, you know, other areas as well.
06:01Okay, doctor, for, you know, in a sense,
06:04we wish we could carry this forward.
06:06You can watch the entire discussion we had on our website,
06:09but I appreciate you joining me on the show here tonight.
06:13Thanks very much.
06:14We are indeed in times of a climate emergency.
