Bengaluru: More than 3,200 people dead. As much as 3.2 million hectares of crops damaged, around 2.3 lakh houses and buildings destroyed, and more than 9,400 livestock dead: all due to extreme weather events that occurred on 255 of the 274 days of the first nine months of this year across India.
These are some of the alarming statistics published in the latest India Climate Report 2024, launched virtually on November 8 by the Centre for Science and Environment and its fortnightly publication, Down to Earth.
This year, India witnessed the highest number of extreme weather events, when compared to the past two years during which CSE and DTE have been publishing the India Climate Reports, which detail the number of such events based on data including daily reports released by the India Meteorological Department. For instance, the India Climate Report 2023 reported extreme weather events on 235 of the 273 days in the first nine months of 2023; 2,923 people died that year, and the events damaged croplands spanning 1.84 million hectares. Hence, the frequency and impacts of extreme weather events are increasing with every year, the 2024 India Climate Report noted.
Tracking extreme weather events
As greenhouse gases emitted due to the use of fossil fuels warm up the world, climate is changing in many regions. Many places are far hotter than they used to be; many others witness more heavy rainfall than usual. These climate extremes are often marked by severe impacts on people and the environment, and are called extreme weather events. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines extreme weather events as those that are rare at a particular place and time of year.
India too witnesses its share of extreme weather events. These range from intense rainfall to heatwaves. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) classifies lightning and thunderstorms, heavy to very heavy, and extremely heavy rainfall, landslides and floods, coldwaves, heatwaves, cyclones, snowfall, dust and sandstorms, squalls, hailstorms and gales as extreme weather events.
Researchers at the Centre for Science and Environment and its publication Down to Earth have been compiling extreme weather events across India for the past three years to make sense of patterns and trends. For this, they bank on daily and monthly climate reports released by the IMD, data released by the Disaster Management Division (DMD) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, and media reports (to track events during the pre-monsoon period, from March to May, and the losses that occurred during this time including crop area affected).
More extreme events, deaths, losses this year
They found that India faced extreme weather events on 93% of the days in the first nine months of this year (from January 1 to September 30, 2024). This translates to extreme events occurring on 255 out of a total 274 days. These events – ranging from lightning and storms to heavy rain, floods, landslides and heat waves – claimed the lives of 3,238 people during this time. The events also affected 3.2 million hectares of crops, destroyed 2,35,862 houses and buildings, and killed 9,457 livestock across the country.
In 2024, extreme events occurred over 35 of all 36 states and union territories in India. This year, 27 states and UTs recorded an increase in the number of days that they experienced extreme weather events when compared to the last two years. Karnataka, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh experienced 40 or more additional days of extreme weather events this year. Kerala recorded the highest number of deaths caused due to extreme events (550), followed by Madhya Pradesh (353 deaths) and Assam (256 deaths). The most number of houses were damaged (85,806) in Andhra Pradesh, and the largest crop area that was affected was in Maharashtra.
India experienced heatwaves on 77 of 274 days during the nine months and 210 people died due to these high temperatures across the country. During the monsoon season – from June to September – India witnessed extreme events on all days, and these were spread across 35 states and UTs. Heavy rains, floods and landslides occurred on all 122 days during this period; lightning and storms followed next, occurring on 103 days during this period. Among states, Assam was the worst-hit during this season, as it witnessed extreme weather events on 111 days. Totally, 2,716 people died due to extreme events during the monsoon season across the country, and 3.04 million ha of crops were damaged.
The year also witnessed several climate records being breached across the country. January 2024 was India’s ninth driest since 1901. In February, the country recorded its second-highest minimum temperature in 123 years. India recorded the highest minimum temperatures in July, August and September, the highest since 1901. East and Northeast India recorded its 12th driest July in 123 years.
This year, the IMD began releasing data on warm nights, a phenomenon when minimum night temperatures remain unusually high instead of dipping: when the maximum temperature has reached 40°C and the minimum temperature is 4.5°C to 6.4°C above normal. This is particularly damaging for peoples’ health, as the human body does not get time to cool down even on warm days. Between March and June 2024, 17 states and Union Territories recorded warm-night events. Five states and UTs – Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh – experienced unusually high night temperatures during mid-June. Of these, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Haryana each recorded four consecutive “severe warm nights” from June 15 to June 18, a new climate extreme.
The need for more comprehensive data
However, there is a data concern: though the IMD has begun releasing data on warm nights, its definition for this phenomenon is “difficult to follow as it does not provide an absolute temperature threshold” unlike what a lot of other countries do, the India Climate Report 2024 noted.
It is also difficult to assess losses and damages caused by extreme weather events due to lack of comprehensive data provided by the DMD as it has also stopped providing cumulative data since 2024. Such “…incomplete data collection on event-specific losses, particularly public property and crop damage” could therefore mean that many of the figures in the report could well be an underestimate, the India Climate Report 2024 noted.
Moreover, the increase in the frequency and impact of extreme weather events demands that more comprehensive data be made available, the report pointed out. For instance, the number of days that India has witnessed extreme weather events has steadily risen from 2022 to 2024. In 2022, it was 86% of the days in the first nine months; this increased to 88% in 2023 and is now 93% in 2024. The human and economic losses have also increased: 3,238 people died in 2024 when compared to 2,755 in 2022, which amounts to an 18% spike in just three years, the report said.
Such “grim news” is coming in at a time when three things are happening, said Sunita Narain, CSE director general and editor of Down To Earth, at the virtual launch of the report on November 8. One is the news of just a few days ago that Donald Trump, a “climate skeptic” has come back to power; the second is that we are at a “time of desperation” when we are close to breaching the guard rail of limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels; and third, that the impacts of climate change are no longer “a boardroom issue” and one that is “hitting the poorest of the poor”, Narain said.
“These record-breaking statistics reflect climate change’s impact, where events that used to occur once every century are now happening every five years or even less,” Narain said in a press release. “This frequency is overwhelming the most vulnerable populations, who lack the resources to adapt to this relentless cycle of loss and damage.”
Many of the impacts of extreme weather events are also due to “bad development” apart from their increased frequencies, Narain said at the virtual launch.
“So if Kerala had the worst landslides possible, it was also because Kerala, in many parts of the Western Ghats, is still building stone quarries and still doing (sic) development as if there is no tomorrow. It is the same with the Himalayas, the same with the city of Delhi. If we have floods in Delhi, it is not only because we have high rainfall in Delhi, it is because we have destroyed our lakes, ponds and drains in our cities.”
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