Will next month’s high-profile Common-wealth Games, already beset by numerous other problems, get swamped under heavy rain? Given the deluge Delhi has faced this extremely wet September, some climatologists feel the city might experience a wet October as well.
Prof. Vikram Soni, a physicist specialising in water issues, feels the uncharacteristically heavy rain in August-September is the result of climate change, and thinks this might continue right through October. “More heat in the atmosphere creates turbulence, and this creates freakish weather conditions. One arm of the monsoon from the Arabian Sea collided with the Karakoram ranges, resulting in unprecedented floods in Pakistan and Ladakh, while the southeast monsoon has been weaker this time.”
Prof. Krishna Kumar, who heads the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, feels four decades of drought have made North Indians forget what a good monsoon is like. “2002, 2004 and 2009 were drought years. Our systems have become attuned to below-normal rainfall, and therefore vigorous rain is seen as being triggered by climate change,” said Prof. Kumar.
IMD director-general Ajit Tyagi feels there is “only a 15-20 per cent probability of rainfall during the Games fortnight”.