Climate change has a big role to play in the devastating monsoon fury – flash flooding and landslides – in the northern Indian Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
According to experts, weather conditions might have been favourable for heavy rains, but climate change has a definite role in the increasing intensity.
The flash flooding and landslides have caused millions of rupees worth of damage and killed several people across the two states.
The rise in extreme weather events is unprecedented, and they have been multiplying rapidly – and the monsoon 2023 is an apt reflection of what climate change impacts would do to the Himalayas if global warming goes unchecked, according to a paper collated by Climate Trends.
The atmosphere, land and oceans are all warming at a faster rate. The warmer it becomes, the more moisture the atmosphere can hold. This has led to more water being evaporated from the Earth’s surface. This increases the holding capacity of the air, which results in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area, the paper points out.
“The Shivalik range is the youngest and most fragile part of the Himalayas as they are made up of debris. Rocks are made up of sandstone and shale rock, which is the weakest form of any rock, and they cannot withstand heavy rains as their composition is of clay minerals.