Climate extremes

_{It's not just Delhi, the anomaly in temperature is now worldwide phenomenon!}

Is Delhi alone in facing the heat! Not really top cities of the World are also facing extreme weather condition in the recent times.

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DNA,

9 June 2014,

Extended winters, super scorching summers and extreme rainfall, deviance in temperature is getting common for the country with every passing season. On Sunday when Delhi broke its 62 year old heat record the anomaly in temperature gave a yet another signal and a deeper dig in the issue shows that not just Delhi but the entire World is facing a major climate change lately.

According to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which monitors global weather, the first six weeks of 2014 have seen an unusual number of extremes of heat, cold and rain in most parts of the World.

WMO assessment reported that Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra recorded heatwaves in January, while temperatures in Moscow were 11 Celsius above normal. Germany and Spain were 2 Celsius above normal for January and February saw six major depressions develop over the Atlantic. The first two months of 2014 also reported the return of Polar Vortex to North America. A polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near either of a planet's geographical poles. The February report of WMO said that both equatorial and polar regions have experienced extremes. While the Southern Alps reported extremely heavy rainfall, monthly temperatures were extremely high from eastern Mongolia to eastern China and in the southern hemisphere; Australia, Argentina and Brazil experienced extended heatwaves. The unusually cold weather in the eastern US coincided with severe storms in Europe.

However, the anomaly in weather continued beyond the first two months of 2014. The deviation or extremities are further evidenced in the month of April. According to Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) -April 2014 report, the deviation in temperature continued in many major cities across the World.

The JMA report shows that all three cities India namely New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai respectively reported an anomaly of -1.5 Celsius, 2.0 Celsius and -0.6 Celsius in their temperature in April 2014.This shows that apart from Kolkata ,Delhi and Mumbai showing complete deviance to that usual weather, were much cooler in April. Other than this, Tokyo (Japan) reported 0.4 Celsius anomaly in its temperature and Beijing (China) recorded 2.3 Celsius deviation from its usual temperature. Karachi (Pakistan) reported o.2 anomaly in temperature.

Citing another example to temperature deviation, Delhi in the first fifteen days of May 2014 recorded visible dip in temperature followed by rainfall. On May 16th 2014, Delhi’s maximum temperature was recorded at 36.7 degree Celsius and minimum temperature was at 25 degree Celsius.

Following the extreme climate change experts UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has even warned India to control its extreme environment exhaustion.

According to IPCC report that released in April-2014, Asia will see severe stress on water resources and food-grain production in the future, increasing the risk of armed conflict among India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. The report further suggested that India, like other developing economies, may lose up to 1.7% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if the annual mean temperature rises by 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrialisation level, hitting the poor the most.