-Livemint Lounge Climate change is making the monsoon more erratic and violent. Lounge speaks to experts to understand the forces shaping India's season of rains When we talk about Climate change impacts, the word that’s often used is “unprecedented”, that which can’t be measured by any given yardstick. Something unprecedented happened over the Western Ghats between 19-25 July. For about a week, a large section of the range, especially in Maharashtra, was...

-Down to Earth Never seen a drought of this magnitude, claim farmers; paddy crop affected Climate change is real. Droughts in the rainy state of Assam are not unheard of anymore. Warmer temperatures have affected the state’s tea gardens for a decade. Now, places recently experiencing unexpected and longer dry spells are catching the eye.  “Never before have I seen drought in this region,” said Dipantor Soh, a 28-year-old farmer from Mirigaon, a...

-Down to Earth Between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of humid tropical forests have been cleared since the early 1990s  Tropical forests are losing their capacity to cycle carbon and water, according to a study using a new tracking system. The system was developed by a team of international scientists to monitor tropical forest vulnerability between 1982 and 2018.  In Africa, forests show relative resilience to climate, according to the study. African...

Media reports indicate that at the start of the southwest monsoon season, lightning strikes caused the death of over 70 people in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on a single day i.e. 11th July, 2021. Prior to those separate events related to human casualty caused by thunderbolts, eighteen elephants were found dead on a hilltop at Kandali Proposed Reserve Forest situated in Assam's Nagaon district on...

-Down to Earth West Bengal, along with Bangladesh, received two million on-ground lightning bolts The region of West Bengal in India and Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable in South Asia to lethal lightning strikes, according to a recent report. West Bengal received the highest number of lightning strikes per square kilometer in 2020, followed by Jharkhand, according to South Asia lightning Report ,2020 by Earth Networks, a global weather intelligence agency. The company’s...