DownToEarth The Aral Sea, the world’s fourth-largest lake until the early 1960s, dried up after that decade in Soviet Central Asia and became a byword for environmental disaster later, almost on the lines of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Now, a new study has found that the desert which emerged due to the drying up of the lake, has made Central Asia a much dustier place. Not only is the dust more hazardous...
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Climate change induced extreme events are playing havoc with human lives & livelihoods, show latest available data
It is evident from various studies (please click here, here and here to access) that emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) by the developed as well as the developing countries is responsible for climate change, thus causing extreme weather events to occur, with much more ferocity than in the past. The negative impact of climate change may or may not be felt in the geographical location where historically emission has taken...
More »Melting Glaciers threaten China and India’s hydropower ambitions -Alok Gupta
-The Third Pole/ Scroll.in The dams the two countries are relying on may not be able to generate much power if avalanches, landslides and floods continue worsening. As Glaciers shrink and monsoon rainfall becomes more unpredictable due to climate change, uncertainty around the viability of hydropower projects in the Hindu Kush Himalayas is increasing. A recent study on the state of a Glacier on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau raises questions about the...
More »CSIR-NGRI working on early warning systems in Himalayan States -V Geetanath
-The Hindu The scientists in the institute have identified a few locations in the higher reaches of Uttarakhand for “densification” of seismometers and river gauges to take the total number to 100 from 60. The National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has begun field studies to put in place an early-warning system in the Himalayan States against major and sudden floods, rockslides, landslips, Glacier lake...
More »What explains the disastrous floods in Pakistan this year? -Sandipan Talukdar
-Peoples' Dispatch A convergence of factors such as extreme heat waves, melting Glaciers, and heavy monsoon rainfall explains the scale of floods in the country. All these factors are connected to climate change Floods have devastated Pakistan this year, with 33 million people affected and more than 1,200 killed. Rivers breaching their banks coupled with the bursting of glacial lakes inundated almost one-third of the country, causing a massive economic loss. Recovery...
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