New Delhi: In yet another instance of the adverse impact of climate change, the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel revealed that the Indian Ocean is warming at a higher rate than other oceans and India will witness increased heatwaves and flooding.
Scientists said that these will be the irreversible effects of climate change and India would hit hard by heatwaves in the coming years.
Recently, stating ‘Code red for humanity’, UN sounds clarion call over humans ‘irreversible’ impact on climate.
The authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis”, said the warming of the ocean will lead to a rise in sea levels, which will contribute to more frequent and severe coastal flooding in low-level areas.
“For a country like India, some of the increase in heat waves is masked by aerosol emissions, and reducing that is important for air quality. We will also see an increase in the heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, and the further melting of glaciers, which will impact a country like India, more compound events from sea-level rise, which could mean flooding when tropical cyclones hit. These are some of the impacts which will not go away,” Friederike Otto, one of the authors of the report, said.
Another author, Swapna Panickal, who is a scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said about 50 per cent of the sea level rise is due to thermal expansion.
She said if large-scale reductions are not made in the greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach.