16 June 2018 12:00 am
Hindustan Times (New Delhi), Jun 15 2018 - The unusually high concentration of particulate matter in the last few days in north India clearly shows that air pollution is not a seasonal problem anymore.
As the climate gets warmer and frequency of rains reduces, such spurts in coarse particles making breathing difficult will become a new normal, unless governments wake up to the alarm.
The latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the planet can bear only up to a 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius increase in temperature from pre-industrial era levels.
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology , in series of papers, said that both the periodicity and duration of dry spells in the country were rising as total rainfall events in a year had fallen even though the average rainfall in a year has not changed much, a direct consequence of
climate change.
The annual average rainfall has remained the same because the frequency of heavy downpours has increased in the past
two decades.