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Mar. 9, 2021
Who doesn’t want a home with a view of the sea? Well, unless the waves are washing around your living room.
Flooding is an intensifying problem in some parts as climate change bites down, and not only on low-lying coasts. But the coasts are a good place to start worrying because a rising sea level can no longer be prevented. The amount of carbon dioxide we have already added to the atmosphere makes more temperature increases inevitable, based on historical climate patterns, and rising temperatures in turn make a further rise in sea levels unavoidable.
The only question is how much the average sea level will rise by any given point in time. We don’t know exactly, in part due to unknowns about global energy policy and how warm the world will get this century.
A Month Since Chamoli Disaster, Scientists Have Reason To Anticipate More 07/03/2021
A view of the portion of the Rishi Ganga river ravaged by floods on February 7, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis.
New Delhi: A month after the disaster in Chamoli district in Uttarakhand, in which at least 70 persons died and 130 or so more remain missing, scientists from three premier institutions have analysed more data to determine the likely cause of the incident – including heavy snowfall just before the day of the disaster, an overall increase in ambient temperature in the area, a rock and ice avalanche at an altitude of 5,600 metres, and a large volume of meltwater and glacial moraine hurtling down a narrow gorge.
updated: Mar 06 2021, 17:06 ist
Heavy precipitation in the Chamoli region from February 4-6 and an overall rise in temperature in Uttarakhand in last four decades could have led to the rock collapse which triggered the deadly flash floods in the state last month, according to a study by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
The report by Kathmandu-based ICIMOD, which was released on Friday, found that a crack had formed prior to the incident at the site where the rock detachment led to a rockslide from the Raunti peak.
The rockslide brought along with it mounds of earth and snow which could have triggered the flash floods. With a straight slide line of 1.6 km (5500 to 3900 masl), the kinetic energy during the fall generated enough heat to melt the ice.