India launching major project to study climate change

Soudhriti Bhabani in Thaindian News via IANS: At least 220 Indian scientists and 127 research organisations are joining hands for a massive study to monitor climate change in different parts of the country. Climate change in India has led to a rise in sea levels while storm surges in coastal areas have also become a major concern for environmental authorities.

According to Ministry of Environment and Forests officials, the report of their study will be released in November next year.

“We’ve seen that the shoreline across the country is getting affected due to the sea-level rise. Erosion is going to take place and it will cause a major damage and human displacement in the coastal parts of the Bay of Bengal,” said Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services director S.S.C. Shenoi. “In Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu) also a large portion of land is likely to go under water in next 50-100 years,” he said.

Despite only about six percent of the global tropical cyclones affecting the coastal areas along the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, intensity of cyclonic storms has gone up, said S.K. Dube, professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences of the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi (IIT-Delhi).

“Storm surge has also become a major cause for concern in several coastal areas along the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. We have noticed that the intensity of cyclonic storms has increased though only 5-6 percent of global tropical cyclones affect these two areas. It’s also because of climate change,” Dube said….

Sunset on the Ganga, near Allahabad at Habeliya, Jhusi Kohna. Shot by Ekabhishek, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License