La Nina, construction worsen air quality; spike in respiratory ailments.
Heatwaves claimed more than 17,000 lives in 50 years in India, according to a paper authored by M Rajeevan, former secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences, along with scientists Kamaljit Ray, S S Ray, R K Giri and A P Dimri.
The country can expect normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon season as a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and a lower snow cover over the northern hemisphere are likely to counter the evolving El Nino conditions, the India meteorological department (IMD) said on Tuesday.
Shah arrived in the evening and was received at the airport by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and Union minister Jitendra Singh, among others.
A total of 435 people died in the country due to extreme weather events during the last three months of the southwest monsoon, according to the data compiled by the India meteorological department.
Glaciers in the Karakoram region are in a stable condition, but those feeding the Ganga and the Brahmaputra river basins are melting at a faster rate, the earth sciences ministry has said.
The Gujarat legislative assembly was adjourned for 15 minutes on Thursday following chaos in the House as the opposition Congress strongly objected to Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former deputy chief minister Nitin Patel's remark on India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Southwest Monsoon is set to arrive early with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands expected to receive first seasonal showers on May 15, the weather office said on Thursday.
A study shows that the country has experienced 706 heatwave incidents from 1971-2019.
Officials at the India Meteorological Department said winds gusting up to 20 kmph on Sunday and 25 kmph on Monday led to a marked improvement in the air quality and improved visibility.
IMD has decided to increasingly use cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in forecasting, both to avoid such glitches and to counter the disruption of normal seasonal patterns as a result of climate change. It has formed various internal sub-groups of senior officials and meteorologists to decide on how best to use AI and ML in predicting cyclone intensity, and in making short-range weather forecasts (those valid for up to three hours) as well as long-range forecasts.
There will be a blanket ban on the production, sale and use of all types of firecrackers in the national capital, including on Diwali, till January 1, 2023, Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Wednesday.
A quake of magnitude 3.4 hit Delhi on Sunday, a third in less than a month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that the partnership between India and Germany could serve as an example of success in a complex world as the two sides inked several agreements focused on sustainable development under which India would receive USD 10.5 billion assistance by 2030 to boost the use of clean energy.
From the numerous small and big shops in the main markets to the residential properties, vehicles, and billboards, posters with the slogan 'NTPC go back' have come up around the town in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district over the past few days.
There is a need to mainstream green finance and devise ways for incorporating environment impact into commercial lending decisions, RBI Deputy Governor M Rajeshwar Rao has said. Addressing climate risk in the financial sector should be the joint responsibility of stakeholders as it would affect the resilience of the financial system in the long run, he said. Rao made these comments while speaking at the CAFRAL Virtual Conference on Green and Sustainable Finance, recently.
The increase in stubble burning has kicked off a political slugfest, with Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Wednesday saying that there had been a 19 per cent rise in farm fires over 2021 in Punjab and that the Aam Aadmi Party had turned the national capital into a gas chamber.
Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi was today given additional charge of ministries of science and technology, earth sciences and micro, small and medium enterprises following ill health of Vilasrao Deshmukh.
The air quality in the national capital remained poor for the sixth consecutive day on Monday with stubble burning accounting for seven per cent of the capital's PM2.5 pollution.
According to Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) Sameer app, the city's air quality index (AQI) stood at 449 in the severe category at 8 am on Saturday. It was 462 on Friday.
The air quality in the capital has remained very poor or severe on most of the days in November so far.
Annapurna Devi, Subhas Sarkar and Rajkumar Ranjan Singh will be the new ministers of state for education.
'The problem is that all this reconstruction work is being monitored by the prime minister himself with inputs being provided directly by the PMO so nobody in the state government dare contradict them even if their suggestions are totally contrary to what the ecology of this region requires.'
With rainfall and monsoons becoming highly unpredictable partly due to climate change and partly due to usual changes in weather patterns, it is such innovations by IMD which will help in planning better, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
He alleged that the BJP made people burst firecrackers on Diwali.
The minimum temperature in the capital dropped to 9.6 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal and the lowest this season so far. The maximum is likely to settle around 27 degrees Celsius, the India Meteorological Department said.
The quake, with its epicentre near Wazirpur in northeast Delhi, occurred at 1.26 pm at a shallow depth of 5 km, said JL Gautam, Head (Operations) at NCS, an institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
A recent study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar has established the presence of coronavirus in water samples from the Sabarmati river and two lakes in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat.
Cyclone Vayu was to hit the Gujarat coast on Thursday, but it changed course on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.
The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi stood at 398 at 11 am, worsening from 357 at 4 pm on Friday. It was 354 on Thursday, 271 on Wednesday, 302 on Tuesday and 312 on Monday (Diwali).
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out the first revamping of his ministry since he assumed power in May, the new ministers took charge of their portfolios on Monday.
Climate change has hampered the ability of the forecasting agencies to accurately predict severe events and weather bureaus across the world are focusing on augmenting the observational network density and the weather prediction modelling to improve predictability, India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra has said.
The tsunami warning centre, which has taken shape at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services in Hyderabad, will issue alerts for the killer waves within 30 minutes of an earthquake. The centre will generate and give timely advisories to the Ministry of Home Affairs for dissemination to the public for which a satellite-based virtual private network for disaster management support has been established.
The global body added that national meteorological and hydrological departments in both countries are working closely with health and disaster management agencies to roll out heat health action plans.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board's mobile application SAMEER, the city recorded an air quality index of 168, which falls in the 'moderate' category, much better than Monday's AQI of 221, which falls in the 'poor' category.
There was no immediate report of any damage or casualty.
The Delhi government has banned construction and demolition activities in the city till November 21.
The region has seen nine quakes since Sunday. Of these, one was recorded in North Sumatra region in Indonesia while others have been recorded in and around the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The central government's Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi said a "significant improvement in air quality is not likely" owing to slow wind speed, particularly during night time, and contribution from farm fires.
Experts said while meteorological conditions were "moderately" favourable for dispersion of pollutants, a "very high" number of farm fires in Punjab was the primary reason for "severe" air quality.
