Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 28: February has just come to an end. According to an old timer Sobhagyaranjan Padhi, a retired teacher, or the not-so-old professor of the Utkal University, Gopal Krishna Panda, this is the time for “slow change from winter to cool breeze and soothing environment”. In effect this is springtime. But Orissa unfortunately has been “losing (the) spring season”, as professor Panda likes to put it. For the last one week the maximum temperature in the city has been hovering around 35 degrees Celsius. Even last year the temperature around this time of the year was more or less similar. This has become the ‘new normal’. The heat that one expects around June-July has to be endured during end February.
Orissa Post went around the city talking to old and young, students and teachers, to find out what they thought was the reason behind this ‘new normal’ temperature the city is forced to experience.
Sobhagyaranjan said, “Climate has really changed and we can see the change coming every year. During the 90s maximum temperature used to reach up to 36 degrees that too in the month of July. But now the scenario has changed totally; in February we are experiencing 34 degrees. Last year the highest temperature in the city crossed 47 degrees, which I have never thought would happen when I was young. Now, there is no doubt that in coming years temperature may cross 50 degrees.”
The retired teacher, however acknowledges that both the government and the general public have become aware and are doing their bit to alleviate the sufferings of man owing to the excessive heat. “Though the government and the public are taking initiative to plant more trees, but it will take time to control climate change which has affected everyone and every place,” he said.
Premi Rangbam, a student from Manipur said, “I have been in the city for the last one year, and I really find the temperature here unbearable; it’s too horrible during summer. The global warming has left its impact everywhere. I belong to northeast, where temperature also crosses 36 degrees in some areas, but that happens only during July-August. This is happening because of deforestation and the construction of factories in the name of development and modernisation. I think some initiative by the government, involving local people to promote afforestation, would help to decrease the impact of climate change.”
A student of management Priyanka Das, said, “I really don’t like summer now as it is the most uncomfortable season for everyone, including the old and the small kids. When temperature crossed 43 degrees five years ago, everyone speculated that one day it will cross 46 degrees and it really happened. Whatever we are facing today is all because of the mistakes made in the past.”
Abhishek Mishra, a student studying in a private engineering college, considers this ‘new normal’ temperature a result of global warming and resultant climate change. “Well climate has really changed and now people are doing everything to protect the environment. Now people are aware that planting lots of trees will gradually decrease the impact of climate change. It will take time, but change will definitely come,” he said.
Prof Gopal Krishna Panda, Geography department, Utkal University, said, “The climate of Orissa has become such that we are losing spring season. It is now time for the spring season, but we are experiencing hot summer in February. We are forced to experience the longest summer and we need to prepare for that. We are experiencing a conflicting zone in climate, that is the north Indian climate and south Indian climate. In the north there are summer and winter, whereas in the south there is only summer and we are in a transition zone”.
In the process Orissa has not only lost its spring, but some other seasons as well. True, there are autumn and the rainy seasons, but Prof Panda thinks that it’s basically a two-season and not a four-season weather circle that we are experiencing these days. “A vast change in climatic condition has occurred in the last ten years and it has affected the normal environment condition. Now practically, there are no four seasons as there used to be; we are left with only two seasons – a short winter and a long summer”, he said.
