New Delhi, August 5: With the mercury rising across the globe due to warming of the planet, mean temperature in India has increased by 0.6 degree Celsius over the last 110 years, the government Wednesday said. Heatwave and severe heatwave (HW/SWH) were also recorded more in the last decade as compared to last four decades and the phenomenon was “abnormally” high in 2015, which witnessed 2,037 deaths across the country.
“In line with the rising temperature across the globe, all Indian mean temperature has risen nearly around 0.6 degree Celsius over the last 110 years,” Union minister of state for science and technology Harsh Vardhan said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He said the government has collected data of daily temperature of 103 stations uniformly distributed across the country for the period 1961-2010 from the Indian mainland during hot weather season (March to July). “It was observed that many areas of the country (north, northwest, central and northeast Peninsula) have experienced heatwave days of more than 8 days on an average per season.
Compared to previous four decades, there was noticeable increase in HW/SWH days over the country during the recent decade 2001-2010, which is the warmest decade for the country as well as for the globe. “Although no HW/SHW phenomena was found to be prevalent over the 3 stations — Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzah — of Kerela, significant long-term increasing trends in maximum temperature anomaly was noticed,” he said.
Of the 2,037 deaths, Andhra topped the chart with 1,369 casualties, followed by 541 in Telnagana, 67 in Orissa, 22 in Uttar Pradesh, 13 in West Bengal, 10 each in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and 5 in Delhi. PTI
