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Indian Express
5 days ago
- Science
- Indian Express
Delhi Confidential: Beyond the blue
At a recent event, when someone asked Union Science Minister Jitendra Singh the all-important question — when will the first Indian astronaut blast off aboard the Gaganyaan Mission — he said India is working not just on sending someone up into space but also deep into the sea. Enter the Samudrayaan Mission, which aims to take Indians 6,000 metres below the ocean's surface to explore the deep blue frontier. When asked about the delay in launching either of the two ventures, the minister said the real goal is not just to send someone up or down, it's also to make sure they return safely to Earth. Cool & Comfortable Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday asked the officials of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) not to operate air conditioners below 24 degrees minister's advice came during the 96th annual general meeting of the ICAR. Chouhan was sharing the dais with MoS, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Bhagirath Chaudhary, MoS, Animal Husbandry, S P Singh Baghel and MoS (independent charge), Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh. It is learnt that soon after the meeting started, some of the ministers complained of the AC being too cold for comfort, prompting Chouhan to instruct the officials not to run the AC system below 24 degrees in future.
Hindustan Times
05-07-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Can we hack our way through the sizzle?: Mridula Ramesh writes on heat
Summer is over and floods are in the air. But still, let's talk about heat. Paris is on red alert, with the top of the Eiffel Tower shut to visitors this week, amid a heat wave that has seen temperatures reach 41 degrees haze, incidentally, is from light reflecting off clouds of dust carried by strong winds. (AFP) Why? Because while India's summer heatwaves may be over, the planet's heat continues to speak through many tongues. Let's start at the source. The Sun is made up largely of hydrogen, and a little helium. Deep in its core, where temperatures reach 15 million degrees Celsius and pressures are immense, hydrogen nuclei fuse into helium. This helium nucleus has slightly less mass than the four hydrogen nuclei that formed it, and the difference in mass is released as energy. In just one second, the sun releases enough energy to meet humanity's needs for 612,900 years. Only a fraction of that energy reaches the top of the atmosphere above Earth. Then, nearly a third of this energy is either absorbed by the ozone layer or reflected, by the clouds, by aerosols and by shiny surfaces (think deserts and ice sheets). A sliver (with enough energy to last us 4,400 years) reaches the planet's surface, which the planet, in turn, releases as heat. Some of this heat radiates back into space, but a lot of it is trapped by greenhouse gases and clouds. Importantly, the outgoing heat does not quite balance out the incoming solar energy, resulting in a planetary energy imbalance. The gold standard data for checking energy flows at the top of our atmosphere comes from CERES (Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System; a project by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA). Their instruments tell us that the energy imbalance has doubled, from 0.5 watt per square metre in the first decade of this millennium to 1.0 watt per square metre in 2013-22. And it's showing: 2024 was the hottest year on record, per NASA, beating 2023, which held the record before it. The planet is currently absorbing as much extra energy as if eight Hiroshima bombs were detonating on its surface every second. That's 'a lot. A lot, a lot', as Rosamund Pike's character puts it, in the 2014 movie Gone Girl. This is not a one-time thing, like the actual Hiroshima bomb was. No, we've been absorbing energy for decades, slowly, invisibly, day and night, everywhere. We are literally sitting in an oven, and ratcheting up the thermostat. Crowds throng a beach in Sale, Morocco, during a heatwave. (AFP) Eight Hiroshima bombs a second. Every second. For the past decade. Let that thought sink in on this pleasant Sunday morning. *** Perhaps we don't register this heating because the oceans have been shielding us by taking up about 90% of it. The rest goes into warming land and air, and melting ice. Periodically, during an El Nino, the ocean belches some of that heat, making the planet hotter, as in 2023. Meanwhile, data from disparate realms — ocean temperatures, ice extent, global air temperatures — all point to the same thing: rising invisible heat. The impacts run deeper than heat exhaustion for humans and rising wet-bulb temperatures. Crops wilt. Wheat, grown today in parts of India it was never suited to, suffers when March feels like May; the grains do not fill out, and shrivel instead. Other botanical immigrants from cooler climes, such as tomatoes, suffer. Monsoons grow fiercer, as warmer air holds more moisture, fuelling intense downpours. Hotter seas supercharge cyclones, battering coastal cities. Human productivity drops. India suffers. The planet suffers. *** This has been going on for a while. Between 1750 and 2019, global surface air temperatures rose by about 1.29 degrees Celsius. According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, heat trapped by carbon-dioxide (CO2) has driven about 1 degree Celsius of that warming, while other greenhouse gases have added 0.58 degrees Celsius. Offsetting this, the effect of land-use changes and aerosols — think pollution and their effect on clouds — have lowered temperatures by roughly 0.30 degrees Celsius. Given this breakdown, the overarching theme in climate action has been reducing CO2 levels by reducing fossil-fuel use. We have not done too well on that front. *** A rare "roll cloud", a huge horizontal bank, advances from the horizon towards the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean during a heatwave in southwestern Portugal, in June. (AFP) Meanwhile… Over the past decade, CERES data shows that incoming solar energy has not changed, the outgoing heat from Earth has risen a bit, but a lot more of the incoming solar radiation is being absorbed. Why? Simply put, the planet appears to be becoming less shiny. While there is a lot of uncertainty over what is causing this change, an early hypothesis is that shifts in cloud patterns could be at play. Clouds act as both umbrellas, by reflecting sunlight and cooling the planet, and as coats, by absorbing heat and warming the surface. The loss of low-level clouds above the ocean, the umbrellas, could have many causes, ranging from warmer oceans and higher greenhouse-gas levels to less sulphur in ship's exhausts and changes in ocean circulation. If cloud patterns are changing in response to warmer oceans, we can expect the heating to intensify. So, what can we do about it? We circle back to reduced carbon emissions. This is already happening in many places. My own textile factory, for instance, now runs largely on renewable energy, made possible by innovation and policies that have driven costs down. In homes, the LED revolution means we enjoy the same brightness at a fraction of the carbon footprint. Developed country emissions are falling, and India, which is still building much of its infrastructure, is seeing the carbon intensity of its economy falling too. But some, ignoring their own historical emissions, ask: 'When China and India are emitting so much, why should we tighten our belts?' India is not China, whose 2023 emissions were nearly four times that of India. But that nuance is missed by many reeling under the heat – temperatures in Spain touched 47 degrees Celsius last week — and clamouring for change. As a result, an idea once considered taboo in climate circles is gaining traction. A decade ago, a start-up purporting to sell cooling credits by injecting sulphur-dioxide particles into the atmosphere over Mexico would have been unthinkable. While the start-up did draw widespread criticism, within a year, the UK government set up its Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA), which this year began funnelling nearly £60 million into several real-world geoengineering experiments. Proponents of geoengineering support real-world trials because they say data from these are needed to shape global governance. But, going by recent events, 'global governance' may be an oxymoron. Sometimes I wonder what lies beneath the hubris of geoengineers. It's not as though the last human-wrought geoengineering experiments — largescale deforestation and rising greenhouse-gas emissions — have gone so well. And yet, they persist. One experiment involves brightening the clouds over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Coral reefs, reeling under the combined onslaught of marine heatwaves and acidifying oceans, are the proverbial canary in the coal mine. So, some are trying to cool the reef by brightening clouds above it. But data from small-scale experiments can miss the bigger picture. For one thing, the mechanism of brightening clouds has some cooling and some warming effects, and the net effect is far from certain, as even proponents admit. Second, meaningful cooling may occur only when such efforts are scaled up, and there we run into a problem. Studies suggest that large-scale marine cloud-brightening efforts may impact ozone levels. Talk about borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Another form of geoengineering involves mimicking volcanic eruptions. It is well-known that global temperatures fall after a giant volcano eruption. Indeed, Indonesia's great Mount Tambora explosion in 1815 saw temperatures dip below 0 degrees Celsius in Chennai. But such cooling has collateral damage, the most important, from India's point of view, being its effect on the monsoon. A recent study of 145 years of data found that medium and large tropical volcanic eruptions were followed by two years of poor monsoons, especially in El Nino periods. That is very bad news. The second casualty, multiple studies suggest, is the ozone layer. Now for the third casualty of such action. Innovation and policy that spur carbon action are possible only because there is a strong, consistent signal across governments and corporate leaders that such action is crucial to planet safety. If this signal is short-circuited or diluted, by geoengineering for example, innovation and entire industries will be cut down. Since these often do good things for the environment and human health, those will suffer as well. Indeed, there are already whispers that the climate-tech industry in the US is feeling the pinch. My sense is that some form of geoengineering will be pushed through. Given that the monsoon may be affected, India should get real about its water. There are thousands of waterbodies scattered across the length and breadth of Indian cities (hundreds in Delhi alone; have you visited the Anang Tal Baoli in Mehrauli?). Many are not in great shape. Rejuvenating them and greening the spaces around them would be highly effective in countering heat and making our cities climate-resilient. Whether or not we whiten the skies. (Mridula Ramesh is a climate-tech investor and author of The Climate Solution and Watershed. She can be reached on tradeoffs@
India Today
20-06-2025
- Climate
- India Today
Delhi cooler than Srinagar as maximum temperature stays below 35°C
Delhi on Friday was cooler than Srinagar as all its weather stations in the national capital recorded a maximum temperature of below 35 degrees Celsius. In contrast, Srinagar, which generally sees cooler summers, saw mercury touching nearly 36 degrees highest temperature in Delhi was recorded at Safdarjung at 34.4C, which was over 1 degrees Celsius less than the maximum temperature in Srinagar. Other weather stations, such as Najafgarh, on Friday recorded a maximum temperature of 33 degrees Celsius, Palam weather station also recorded 33 degrees Celsius, and Narela weather station recorded 34 degrees of the key reasons behind the unusually low temperatures in Delhi is the frequent rainfall over the past few days. On Tuesday evening, heavy rain lashed Delhi and the National Capital Region, leading to waterlogging in several areas. The showers brought significant relief from the heat and helped maintain cooler daytime temperatures across the city. Delhi is expected to witness rainfall along with thunderstorms throughout the weekend. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for rain, lightning, thunderstorms, and gusty winds, which will remain in effect until June 24. The temperature if the city is also expected to remain below 35 degrees Watch IN THIS STORY#Delhi
Economic Times
18-06-2025
- Climate
- Economic Times
Delhi weather: IMD issues yellow alert for rain, predicts thunderstorm and gusty winds
IMD issues yellow alert in Delhi for two days Live Events 14 flights diverted, 400 delayed as rains hit Delhi (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for thunderstorm accompanied by lightning and gusty winds in Delhi on Wednesday. It has predicted moderate rainfall and thundersqualls with wind speeds reaching 50 to 60 kmph, especially in the the day, the temperature is expected to be around 34 degrees Celsius, while the minimum temperature will settle near 27 degrees IMD has predicted intense thunderstorms , citing potential hazards such as intense lightning in open spaces, traffic disruptions, and likely delays to flight and train yellow alert has been place until Thursday, with the weather department indicating continued chances of rain, thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds over the have been urged to remain indoors and avoid non-essential travel. Further, The IMD advised unplugging electrical appliances during storms to guard against lightning-induced showers brought relief from intense heat on Tuesday. However, it also caused waterlogging and traffic congestion in several parts of the 3 pm and 4 pm, 14 flights were diverted from Delhi airport due to adverse weather conditions, according to PTI. Six were rerouted to Bhopal, three to Chandigarh, two to Amritsar, and one each to Ahmedabad, Varanasi, and from indicated that over 400 flights were delayed, and some cancellations were rain led to waterlogging in areas such as the Delhi Cantonment underpass, Zakhira Underpass, Pul Prahladpur, ITO, and stretches of Delhi Najafgarh Road and Rohtak Road, severely affecting vehicular to IMD data, rainfall recorded at various weather stations included 10 mm at Safdarjung, 5 mm at Lodhi Road, 41 mm at Pusa, 15 mm at Narayana, and 23 mm at maximum temperature in the national capital settled at 36.2 degrees Celsius, 3.8 notches below the seasonal average, while the minimum stood at 28 degrees Celsius, 1.5 degrees above the city's air quality remained in the 'moderate' category on Tuesday. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Air Quality Index (AQI) was measured at 104 at 4 per CPCB classification, an AQI between 0 and 50 is considered 'good', 51 to 100 'satisfactory', 101 to 200 'moderate', 201 to 300 'poor', 301 to 400 'very poor', and 401 to 500 'severe'.
Time of India
08-06-2025
- Climate
- Time of India
IMD predicts dust-laden winds with generally clear sky for Delhi on June 9
Delhi is expected to experience dust-laden winds and a clear sky on Monday, according to the IMD. The maximum temperature is likely to be around 43 degrees Celsius, while the minimum will be around 28 degrees Celsius. On Sunday, the maximum temperature reached 42.1 degrees Celsius, and the air quality was in the 'moderate' category with an AQI of 198. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Dust-laden winds are expected to continue in the national capital on Monday with a generally clear sky, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) maximum temperature in Delhi rose to 42.1 degrees Celsius, 2.1 degrees above the seasonal average, while the minimum temperature was recorded at 27.7 degrees Celsius, it to the IMD, strong surface winds are likely in the city on Monday with the maximum temperature expected to hover around 43 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature to be around 28 degrees relative humidity was recorded at 31 per cent at 5.30 pm. Delhi's air quality was recorded in the "moderate" category at 6 pm on Sunday, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) reading of 198, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data to the CPCB, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 'severe'.
