Human Hothouse Death Toll Climbs to 2300 in India, Monsoon Suppressed, Delayed
The fifth
deadliest heatwave in the global record continues
to claim lives in India.
June,
2015
As
of earlier today 2300
souls were accounted lost due to oppressive May and early June
heat preceding
a delayed onset of a substantially weakened annual summer Monsoon.
Temperatures across India have ranged from the middle 90s to as high
as 114 degrees (Fahrenheit) over recent days with readings remaining
in heatwave ranges even throughout the night.
The
above May 25 temperature map by NOAA displays an extreme heat pattern
that has remained in place now for weeks over India, with 40 degree
Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures covering a greater
portion of the country. Andhra Pradesh, at the center of this hot
zone, has seen the most impact with more than 1700 souls lost there
as of this morning.
As
with most heatwaves, the elderly, the poor, and those who work
outdoors have shown the highest losses. In this heatwave, field
workers, who survive on daily wages, have been particularly hard-hit.
The choice for them has been a brutal one of brave the blazing heat
and risk life or stay home in the shade and risk livelihood.
Monsoon
Delayed, Weak
A
smattering of rain showers has started to infiltrate sections of
India as of today, bringing isolated relief. But, overall, the larger
Indian Monsoon continues to hold off, delayed at its gates in the Bay
of Bengal.
(Monsoon
again delayed as heatwave conditions remain entrenched over India.
Image source: India’s
Monsoon Information Page.)
As
of June 2, Monsoonal advance had only proceeded to the typical May 25
line — more than a one week delay. A cruel tardiness for poor,
sweltering India.
Adding
insult to an already bad climate state for India, as of this
morning the
Government had also downgraded the expected strength of the monsoon
to 88 percent of a typical year.
The 12 percent loss of water from the farm-feeding rains would
increase risk of an agriculture-disrupting drought in many of India’s
states. Such a drought could hit the 50% of India’s non-irrigated
farms quite hard while also adding stress to water supplies feeding
the irrigated facilities.
A
Heatwave that was Almost Certainly Caused by Climate Change
Human-forced
warming of the oceans through fossil fuel burning has almost
certainly had an impact on this year’s drought and monsoon delay
for India. The warming has added about 0.6 C of heat to a now
strengthening El Nino over the Equatorial Pacific. In the past, only
strong El Ninos provided enough atmospheric heat forcing to delay
monsoons, spark powerful heatwaves, and spur droughts across
India. Now,
even weak to moderate events are having this effect with last year
seeing a mere shift toward El Nino conditions delaying monsoonal
progress and reducing rainfalls across the region.
In
addition, recent studies
have found that 75 percent of heatwaves are now caused by climate
change globally.
So, as with the
Texas floods of the past few weeks,
when we are looking at instances of freakishly extreme weather, we
are also looking at the growing impact of human-caused climate
change.
Unfortunately,
due to the delayed monsoon and extreme heat deeply entrenched
throughout many regions of India, we can expect a high risk for loss
of life to continue for at least the next few days as a weakened and
delayed monsoon fights to gain ground. This is an instance of yet
another early, easy outlier of the very extreme climate change
related weather that will follow, with locked-in conditions worsening
so long as we continue burning fossil fuels.
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