The Hindu Business Line : Signs of climate change in peninsular India

Bangalore, Oct. 20 Rainfall data on the flood-hit regions of Karnataka for the last five years show that the recent floods have not been caused by “the worst rain in a hundred years.” The flood-hit districts do tend to receive heavy rain in September.

The data, for the period August 27-October 14 for each of these years, also point to extreme variations, taht may be considered as one of the signs of climate change.

If Bidar, Raichur, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Gadag, Bagalkote and Bellary received rainfall that was way above normal between September 24 and October 7, 2009, they went through a similar experience between September 3 and September 16, 2008. In 2007, these districts received moderate to heavy rainfall between September 10 and September 23.

The northern districts went through a dry spell in 2006, but in 2005 they received heavy rainfall between September 3 and September 9. Therefore, the rain this year was not entirely out of the ordinary; it merely arrived two weeks later than the usual period.

Deviations

The drought monitoring cell of the State Government publishes rainfall data on a weekly basis, citing deviations from the ‘normal’ for a particular week.

The normal is a 10-year average. A significant deviation from the normal is one that is more than 20 per cent, whether surplus or deficit.

The flood affected districts of Bidar, Raichur, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Gadag, Bagalkote and Bellary have hardly ever received normal rain between the end of August and mid-October; while a deficit well above 20 per cent has been the norm, heavy rain over a week is also part of the pattern.

The rainfall data over one and a half months between 2005 and 2009 for the seven districts yielded 231 observations. Of these, only 23 were in the ‘normal’ range. While data over a short period is likely to show sharper variations, it does raise concerns about climate change.

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