A warm warning

already the toll in the prolonged heat wave scorching most parts of north and central India has crossed 1100. In Andhra Pradesh alone the figure has touched 1000, with temperatures hovering in the region of an impossible 49c. Significantly, the state chief minister Chandrababu Naidu has constituted a scientific committee to look into the occurrence and explore its links with global warming. Yet the meteorological department continues to play the proverbial ostrich, despite dire warnings from climate experts that the heat waves over the past few years are but early manifestations of global warming.

Scientists have reported that the mean surface temperature in the country has steadily increased by 0.4c in the past 100 years. Using models they predict that mean winter and summer temperatures could increase by as much as 2-4c by the 2050, all on account of greenhouse gases (ghg), in the business as usual scenario. Globally, over the 20th century, temperature has risen by about 0.6c. In the Northern Hemisphere, the increase was the largest of any century in the past 1000 years. The1990s was the warmest decade while 1998 was the warmest year since 1871. Changes have also occurred in other important aspects of climate, like precipitation and rainfall. In the coming years, global warming is likely to increase the occurrence of extreme events like droughts and floods. Warm episodes of the El Nio southern oscillation (enso) phenomenon have been more frequent, persistent and intense since the mid 1970s, compared to the previous 100 years.

Scientists are a divided lot over the link between climate changes and global warming, and climatic phenomena remain notoriously difficult to understand. There are no simple explanations. But ignoring them is not the answer either. What this year's toll will be is anybody's guess. But still the question remains unanswered, why are Andhra Pradesh and Orissa experiencing such extreme temperatures? Is there a trend that we need to understand. Are the frequencies of these "natural" events increasing, or their intensities?

Instead of serious analysis, what we have is some knee-jerk responses with pollution to industrialisation being blamed for the current hot spells. But then if Naidu's initiatives are anything to go by, what we need perhaps is more politicians with a scientific bent of mind. We hope that Naidu will pursue this quest and not allow scientists and technocrats to pull a fast one -- or should we say slow one -- on politicians again, by dismissing any serious question with the arrogant we know it all. And there is nothing new to report.

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