Global warming impact
From Cosmas Sangma
TURA: The Garo Hills region is experiencing unpredictable weather pattern since the last three weeks with soaring temperatures and extreme humidity, but surprisingly no rain, revealing once again the bitter truth about global warming and its impact.
The month of July this year was the warmest month ever recorded across the entire world, researches from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced on Monday after compiling satellite data.
And Garo Hills has also been impacted like the rest of the northeast region and the country from the unprecedented warming.
Globally, this July was revealed by scientists to have been marginally warmer-by 0.04 degrees Celsius- than July 2016 which was previously the hottest month on record. However, the 2016 record was attributed to the presence of a strong El Nino weather event, this July isn’t.
In the absence of rainfall, temperatures have risen to a high of 34 degree Celsius even in Tura while in the plains belt region the sweltering heat has raised it a notch or two higher. The 90 percent prevailing humidity has only added to the misery.
In the last three days the temperature in the daytime has been hovering around 34 degree Celsius and the lowest dropping only to around 26.5, data reveal.
The biggest worry has been the long dry spell at the peak of the Monsoon season.
Though the first week of July experienced a substantial amount of rainfall in the region, even overtaking last year’s entire month of rainfall, the rains have suddenly ceased. Barring sporadic spells of a light shower, there has been no substantial rainfall in the region for the last four weeks.
The initial monsoon showers in the first week of July brought in 452 mm of rainfall in the Tura-Ganol region, according to data from the Weather Research Station of the Rubber board of India located at Ganol, 12 kms from Tura. This was substantial given the fact that last year’s entire July rainfall was only 237 mm.
Since February of this year Tura region has received 908.5 mm of rainfall, highest being in May (414.5 mm) and lowest in March (77 mm).
But there is much ground to cover if the records are to be set right because data from the last three years prove that global warming has caused a drastic reduction in rainfall in Garo Hills.
In the face of the El Nino weather pattern affecting the entire globe in 2016, Garo Hills recorded 2937 mm of rainfall for the entire year. Shockingly, though the El Nino impact disappeared, the rainfall figure continued to drop further. It fell by 1259 mm by the year 2018 when only 1677.4 mm of rainfall fell in the region.
The biggest worry for everyone is whether the rain situation will change for the better by the end of the monsoon season, which is less than two months away, or will it continue to play truant once more posing a serious threat to ground water reserves and impacting the farming community- the backbone of livelihood in this part of the region.
Unchecked deforestation, as the lush green forests gave way to human development activities and expansion, widespread illegal felling of trees in what remains of the reserve forests in Garo Hills, the stripping of the green cover to produce charcoal in the West Khasi Hills region, coal and limestone mining have all contributed to turning the weather around for worse.
Hoping to halt, if not reverse the destruction taking place, the state government, during this year’s World Environment Day celebrations, went all out to create awareness about global warming and the importance of preservation of forests, setting a record for the largest tree plantation programme ever to take place in the state.
The outcome of this mammoth green project and its impact on substantially contributing to halt climate change in the region shall be known within the next few years.
Right now all eyes are on the heavens above hoping for the monsoon rains to return. There is a silver lining in the sky, albeit temporary, as weather forecasts finally predict a good spell of shower throughout the region as early as this week, itself.
Rainfall Data Record in Garo Hills
2016: 2937 mm rainfall.
2017: 2512.5 mm rainfall.
2018: 1677.4 mm rainfall.
2019:
February: 81 mm.
March: 77 mm.
April: 336 mm.
May: 414.5 mm.
June: 331 mm.
July: 452 mm (only first week).