Summer of 2022: How prepared is India for a frightening rise in temperatures?

Representative image (Image: AP)

In Spanish, La Niña means a Little Girl. Its environmental connotations, however, can be a picture in contrast.

Scientists conclude La Niña to be an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate pattern.

Yet, its impact on India - particularly the country’s north - has been more exacting than before – and that is saying a lot.

This year, India experienced the hottest March in the last 122 years! The unseasonal heat wave across north and central India contributed to making March 2022 the hottest ever since record keeping began in 1901.

As per the data released by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the average temperature in March was 33.1°C, breaking the previous record of 33.09°C of 2010. The advance formation of strong anti-cyclonic circulation along with scanty rainfall in north and central India in the absence of western disturbances resulted in record-breaking heatwaves in India.

In the week of March 27 to April 2, the maximum temperature was recorded at above 40°C in various stations of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi.

K J Ramesh, former director general of IMD told Moneycontrol, “This excessive heat is on account of La Niña. While the monsoon will be fine, as was announced, the pre-monsoon heat is going to be oppressive, with global warming showing its true impact.”

The silver lining is the IMD forecast of April 14, which predicted a ‘normal’ monsoon, its first long range forecast. IMD officials said that the onset of southwest monsoon, which accounts for about 75 percent of the country’s annual rainfall over Kerala, remains June 1.

The IMD, annually, releases long range forecasts in two stages – in April and June.

This makes it the fourth consecutive year that the IMD is predicting normal rainfall. The seasonal rain is considered normal when it is 96-104 per cent of the long period average or LPA. The LPA is defined as the average of the last 50 years.

With heat rising the way it is, the more crucial question is whether India is prepared for climate change? On the face of it, it may not appear to be so. Buildings with large glass panes are the order of the day and with a minimum 5 feet difference between buildings are hardly conducive to promoting greenery.

“India has to take its Heat Action Plan more seriously,” says Dileep Mavlankar, head of the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Among his other achievements, Mavlankar holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) and a Doctor of Public Health (Dr PH) degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, USA.

He told Moneycontrol, “The Heat Action Plan needs to be implemented. Wide publicity needs to be given to rising temperatures so that the people at large can prepare in advance. The IMD Safar, for example, has this information on its apps, but people need to be made aware, just like political parties highlight their achievements with full-page ads.”

According to him, deaths need to be monitored and hospitals kept in readiness, because what’s being witnessing is just the beginning of the hazards of climate change -- the situation could get worse and heat waves rise to unmanageable levels.

There is also the need for adequate water resources, which, coupled with the blistering heat can have terrible consequences.

Mavlankar says Ahmedabad has been a pioneer in this field and statistics provided by the PwC prove him right.

“In 2010, a severe heat wave in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, was estimated to have caused over 1,300 excess deaths. Extreme heat can lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, it can exacerbate chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and make daily tasks and work outdoors harmful or deadly,” says a PwC assessment.

Explaining what it has done, the PwC went into details.

“Over the last three years, as part of its role leading the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), PwC has been supporting the creation and roll-out of an extreme heat action plan for the city of Ahmedabad, in partnership with the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), a coalition of academic, health and environmental groups to develop an Extreme Heat Action Plan,” it said.