The ticking time-bomb of climate change is firmly strengthening its grasp around the city.
Niket Nishant
Bengaluru has recorded irregular and unpredictable rainfall in October this year, with the departure from normal as high as 57 per cent. This signals a shift in the overall climate of the city, experts warn.
An official of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said, “In the third week of October (from October 15 to 21), a deficit in rainfall by 46 per cent was recorded. We saw just 16 millimetres (mm) rainfall against the normal of 30 mm.”
“However, in the very next week, we saw vigorous rainfall in the city. It exceeded the normal by 180 per cent,” he added.
An analysis of the weekly rainfall reports from the KSNDMC show that in the first four weeks of October, from October 1 to October 28, the rainfall recorded was 50 per cent in excess of normal.
Last year, the city saw a rainfall deficit of 57 per cent in October, data from the KSNDMC show.
A Bengaluru-based post doctoral research fellow in Environmental Science said, “This has been in the making for a long time now. Changing rainfall patterns is just the tip of the iceberg. The huge problem of climate change is looming over us.Urgentand concrete steps need to be taken to tackle this.”
“Over time, it will become even more difficult to predict and forecast rainfall. Chances of flash floods might increase. This will be disastrous, especially for a state like Karnataka which is prone to floods,” he added.
The problem of irregular rainfall is not just limited to Bengaluru. In Mysuru, 33 per cent excess rainfall was recorded in October. In Bellary, Belagavi and Udupi; 101, 119 and 218 per cent excess rainfall was recorded respectively.
