As per the reports compiled by climatic trends, the existing weather conditions are the outcomes of increased global warming. The western disturbances and ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) are the results of the continuous rise in the global mean temperatures that have been affecting the dynamics of major weather conditions.
During winter, the change in the features of the systems has impacted the precipitation in India.
According to G P Sharma, President of Skymet Weather, “There is a terror of the massive huge crop loss due to La Nina marked by colder than normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial pacific ocean which tends to defeat the rising global temperatures. The changing conditions and global warming play a major role which can be temporarily controlled by these ENSO conditions but cannot completely outshine the effects of climatic change. Under the shade of the most powerful and human-induced climatic changes, these natural climatic events take place like El Nino/La Nina/IOD”.
After giving rise to the precipitation over the western Himalayas, western disturbances travel eastward towards the eastern part of the country.
Concurrently, if there is a structure in the north Bay of Bengal, both systems meet with each other bringing a good amount of rainfall over the east and the northeast. But as per the meteorologists, they did not see many active western disturbances, and even the north Bay of Bengal witnessed less rainfall.
In 122 years, December was declared as the warmest year with the highest mean temperatures. In the western Himalayas, January received a good spell of rain and snow but the east and northeast parts failed to receive the rainfall. With the record of the highest average maximum temperatures since the year 1901, February was declared the hottest month. The northeast and eastern parts saw a rainfall shortage of 53 percent in December, 89 percent in January, and 34 percent in February.
According to A P Dimri, Director of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, “Western Disturbances are getting lighter due to more convection and heat coming in due to the global warming effects and with this, they are trailing in the upper atmosphere. In addition to this, not all western disturbances lead to rain.”
