By-R Dutta ChoudhuryGuwahati, May 31: Assam has started facing the impact of climate change. The mean temperature is increasing, while, the number of extreme weather events is also increasing. Under the circumstances, the Government will have to take adequate adaptive measures to mitigate the sufferings of the people. These are the views expressed by the former Director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Prof BN Goswami.Talking to The Assam Tribune, Prof Goswami, who is now working at Cotton University as a Professor of Practice, said that cyclone forecasting in India has improved considerably and that is why, early warning systems could save the lives of many people. Due to early warning of cyclones, people could be evacuated to safer places. Similarly, there is a need for improving flood fore casting so that people can be evacuated to safer places. Goswami suggested that the Government can construct shelters in flood-prone villages to provide shelter to the affected people. As the condition of many Government school buildings is in bad shape, if those are reconstructed, those can serve both purposes.Goswami admitted that climate change is a global phenomenon, but unfortunately, the changes in Assam were not studied thoroughly. He revealed that when he, along with a team of teachers and researchers tried to study the rainfall pattern changes, there was not enough data for a detailed study.Data from only ten stations were available, that too, only for around 30 years. As climate change is a slow process, data for around 100 years are required for a detailed study. He said that as the British planters kept rainfall records and recorded them in the journals, data from the tea gardens were also collected.The research unearthed some interesting facts. With the increase of one degree Celsius mean temperature, the overall rainfall decreased by around 3.5 per cent. In the last 100 years, the mean temperature of the Northeast also increased by around 1.7 to 2 degrees Celsius.Goswami revealed that with global change, the atmosphere has become unstable and the extreme event days have increased, which increased hydrological disasters. Earlier, Assam used to get drizzles during the monsoon season for a long period. But that has changed to extreme rainfall and that too is very localized. He pointed out that a localized thunderstorm usually covers an area of 20 to 30 km while a low-pressure system can cover a much larger area and cyclones can cover over a thousand km.
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