NEW DELHI: A scientific study has attributed the July 30 devastating Wayanad landslides to a “burst of rainfall” triggered by human-induced climate change. It said more than 140 mm of rains fell in a single day – equivalent to nearly a quarter of London’s annual rainfall – on soils that were already highly saturated following two months of seasonal monsoon rains in Kerala.
A group of 24 researchers from India, US, UK, Sweden, Netherlands and Malaysia, who conducted the study, noted that though such an extreme event is expected to occur on average about “once every 50 years” under the current global warming of 1.2 degree celsius, people in northern Kerala can be saved from future landslides and floods only with “minimising deforestation and quarrying, while improving early warning and evacuation systems”.
The study under the World Weather Attribution (WWA) shows that the event was the third heaviest one-day rainfall episode on record in the region, with heaviest spells in 2019 and 1924, where the climate change made the downpours 10% heavier, triggering the deadly landslides.
“The Wayanad landslides is another catastrophic example of climate change playing out in real-time… Until the world replaces fossil fuels with renewable energy, monsoon downpours will continue to intensify, bringing landslides, floods and misery to India,” said Mariam Zachariah, researcher at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London.
On prior alerts issue that put the Centre and the Kerala govt at loggerhead, the study underlined that though the extreme rainfall was well forecast by the IMD and warnings were issued, the information was at the state-level, making it difficult to discern which localities would be impacted by landslides (one of the potential impacts of heavy rainfall listed in the warning) and would therefore require evacuation.
“The findings reported here are physically consistent with those predicted by climate science… These direct threats to people in India will continue to escalate as the climate warms and humans continue to regulate natural systems,” said Arpita Mondal, associate professor, IIT Bombay.
The WWA study, released on Wednesday, flagged that if the world does not move away from fossil fuels, causing global warming to reach 2 degree Celsius, one-day spells of rainfall in Kerala will become a further 4% heavier, risking even more destructive landslides.
WWA is an international collaboration that analyses and communicates the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, and droughts.
A group of 24 researchers from India, US, UK, Sweden, Netherlands and Malaysia, who conducted the study, noted that though such an extreme event is expected to occur on average about “once every 50 years” under the current global warming of 1.2 degree celsius, people in northern Kerala can be saved from future landslides and floods only with “minimising deforestation and quarrying, while improving early warning and evacuation systems”.
The study under the World Weather Attribution (WWA) shows that the event was the third heaviest one-day rainfall episode on record in the region, with heaviest spells in 2019 and 1924, where the climate change made the downpours 10% heavier, triggering the deadly landslides.
“The Wayanad landslides is another catastrophic example of climate change playing out in real-time… Until the world replaces fossil fuels with renewable energy, monsoon downpours will continue to intensify, bringing landslides, floods and misery to India,” said Mariam Zachariah, researcher at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London.
On prior alerts issue that put the Centre and the Kerala govt at loggerhead, the study underlined that though the extreme rainfall was well forecast by the IMD and warnings were issued, the information was at the state-level, making it difficult to discern which localities would be impacted by landslides (one of the potential impacts of heavy rainfall listed in the warning) and would therefore require evacuation.
“The findings reported here are physically consistent with those predicted by climate science… These direct threats to people in India will continue to escalate as the climate warms and humans continue to regulate natural systems,” said Arpita Mondal, associate professor, IIT Bombay.
The WWA study, released on Wednesday, flagged that if the world does not move away from fossil fuels, causing global warming to reach 2 degree Celsius, one-day spells of rainfall in Kerala will become a further 4% heavier, risking even more destructive landslides.
WWA is an international collaboration that analyses and communicates the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, and droughts.