Uttarakhand Breaks Rainfall and Heat Records

• 12 Jul 2024

Why in News?

As per a report by Climate Trends, Uttarakhand has been witnessing extreme weather events for the past two months, ranging from record breaking temperatures to extremely heavy rainfall triggering flash floods and landslides.

Key Points

• The rise in global average temperatures has increased atmospheric moisture, leading to the formation of intense clouds and triggering heavy rains.
  • As temperatures continue to rise, these intense rain events are likely to become more common.
• In Uttarakhand, the warming temperature trend is worsening forest fire events to a greater extent.
• Human-caused climate change is influencing weather and climatic extremes in higher elevation places, and many recent studies have reported on the increasingly prevalent Elevation-Dependent Warming (EDW).
  • EDW influences the Himalayan rivers and glaciers (changes in the glacial mass balance, river discharge, snowfall), which is the only water source for the hilly region’s livelihood.

Flash Floods

• These are sudden surges in water levels generally during or following an intense spell of rain.
• These are highly localised events of short duration with a very high peak and usually have less than six hours between the occurrence of the rainfall and peak flood.
• The flood situation worsens in the presence of choked drainage lines or encroachments obstructing the natural flow of water.

Landslide

• A landslide is defined as the movement of a mass of rock, debris, or earth down a slope.
• They are a type of mass wasting, which denotes any downward movement of soil and rock under the direct influence of gravity.
• The term landslide encompasses five modes of slope movement: falls, topples, slides, spreads, and flows.