The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its long-awaited scientific assessment on how human-caused emissions are causing fundamental planetary changes to the climate system.
An overview of the Working Group I (WGI) contribution to the Sixth Assessment Cycle (AR6) for policymakers, titled Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, has painted a bleak picture for India.
According to the AR6 Working Group I report, southern parts of India are expected to witness a rise in severe rainfall. In comparison to 1850-1900, rainfall along the southwest coast could increase by roughly 20%. Furthermore, if the world heats by 4°C., India might witness a 40% increase in yearly precipitation.
The [MD1] report affirms that the world will warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the 2030s despite implementing the most ambitious emissions scenario. Following this, temperatures will overreach to 1.6°C, and then fall to 1.4°C by the end of the century.
Warming over India is predicted to follow the global average, with an increase in the occurrence and severity of hotter temperatures, cites the IPCC study. It also hinted a rise in annual mean precipitation, with surge in rainfalls during the rainy season.
The report's authors added that over the medium to long term, monsoon precipitation is expected to rise in South Asia. Heavy precipitation events, which currently occur once every ten years on average, are expected to roughly double in frequency at 2°C (1.7 times in ten years). The probability of these incidents will increase by 2.7 times in ten years if the temperature rises to 4°C.
The report stresses that human-caused emissions are responsible for the entirety of global warming, with the rate of climate change speeding up at an unprecedented rate in the last 2,000 years causing extreme weather catastrophes.