Indian Himalayan region: Climate projections 2021-2040

UNSPECIFIED, ed. (2024) Indian Himalayan region: Climate projections 2021-2040. Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. ISBN 978-81-948757-8-9

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Abstract

THE CLIMATE CRISIS is perhaps the greatest challenge that humanity is facing right now. All of us are reading about climate change in the media. We are perhaps experiencing what we are thinking of as climate change. However, I don’t think we are really conscious of the extent of the changes that we will have to deal with, particularly in India. Climate change is not some distant future challenge – it is the reality of today. Yet all the climate projections that we talk about tend to look way ahead – at what will happen 30, 40, 50years later. This climate forecast for India, which looks at a period of 2021to 2040, makes the extent of the crisis very real for all of us today. It highlights the damage to society, to individuals, to families, to the economy. This dataset looks at changes from 2021 to 2040 -2040 is just 16 years away. It brings to life the impacts of climate change with much greater immediacy, especially the impacts in our immediate environment. In this period, average temperatures in India are likely to rise by 1.5°C. The effect of this change is dramatic in the Himalayas and in the coastal regions of India, where the minimum temperatures will rise, increasing the number of heatwaves and the intensity of heatwaves. All of us are familiar with a three or five day period in May in very many parts of the country, where we experience an intense heat wave. Now imagine if those heat waves are not 4or 5 days long, 8 or 9 days long. And they happen not just once or twice a year, but four, five, six, seven times in succession. Let me remind you, we are not talking about 2070 or 2090. We are talking about the near future, within the next 16 years.

Item Type:	Book
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Sustainability
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > Research Centre > Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/5859
Publisher URL:

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