Report on Climate Change and Public Health
Added on 2020-05-08
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Climate Change and Public Health1
Introduction: Climate change is becoming noticeable in India due to change in sea level,irregular precipitation and irregular temperature. Most of the developing countries like Indiashare less percentage in the global greenhouse gas emissions. However, it has major impacton health of their own population. Along with health of the people, this climate change alsoaffected agriculture because majority of the population of India is agriculture based (Wileyand Gostin, 2009). Hence, climate change imposed heavy economic burden on India becauseIndian Government need to invest in addressing climate change issues and there is loss ofproductivity due to effect on agriculture. It can also lead to global health disparities. High riskareas for climate change include shortage of resources, environmental deprivation, high ratesof infectious disease, scarcity of infrastructure, and overpopulation. Tropical regions are mostsusceptible for the host-pathogen interaction due to the climate change. Alterations in the temperature and precipitation patterns can alter ecology of vector-bornediseases (Dhiman et al., 2008). Most susceptible populations for these vector-borne diseasesinclude older people, children, rural populations, and the poor. India is one of the mostdiverse countries in the world. India has geographical and climatic diverse regions. India ishaving 1/6 of world’s population, 1/50 of world’s land and 1/25 of world’ water (Singh et al.,2010). Hence, identifying relation between climate change and health issues in India wouldbe helpful in developing warning alarms and prevention strategies that could be applicable allover the world. Climate change India: It has been warned that glaciers are receding with rate of 10 – 15metres per year. With this increasing rate there can be flooding in the river valleys. It can leadto reduced flow and less availability of water for drinking and irrigation (Keqin et al., 2007).In 20th century, 0.5̊ C temperature rises was observed in India. It has been predicted that,same can continue upto 2030. More importantly this rise in temperature can reach upto 2-4 Cby the end of this century. Northern part of India would be more affected by this rise in thetemperature and it can lead to augmented levels of tropospheric ozone pollution. End of the20th century in India was observed as warmer than previous 300 years. This increase intemperature is continuing and in future also this temperature would increase (Saran andJones, 2016). It is evident from the studies that monsoon in the south part of India exhibited less rainfall inrecent past. This lessened rainfall has been corelated with the increased monsoon winds overthe western Arabian sea. It resulted in increased temperature in the southern part of the India.2
Since, 1970s, there is upward trend in the tropical storms and hurricanes in India. Thesestorm were with longer duration and greater intensity and these occurred mainly due toincrease in the tropical sea surface temperature (Ghosh, 2016). In last 50 years it has beenobserved that warm extremes are associated with more heat waves and cold extremes werewarmed more as compared to the warm extremes. Hence, there were less frost days. Thisresulted in the increased frequency of heavy precipitation. Between 1900 to 1999, there wasconsistent warming in upper 100 m tropical and eastern subtropical Indian ocean. Thiswarming was less during 1900 to 1970, however between 1971 to 1999, there was significantincrease in temperature. In few of these decades, increase in temperature was more than 0.2̊C. Between, 1900 to 2005, there was increase in precipitation by 20 % per century. However,there was dramatic decrease in the precipitation from 1979 to 2005 (Dubash, 2012). As India is geographically diverse country, in different states light variation in the temperateand rainfall were observed over the period of 1951-2010. In states like Punjab and Haryanathere was decrease in temperature of 0.01̊C per year, while in states like Himachal Pradeshthere was increase in temperature by 0.06̊ C per year. Average increase in temperature inIndia between 1951-2010 was 0.01 C per year. It was observed that between 1951-2010,there was increase in rainfall in in state like West Bengal by +3.63 mm/year, while there wasdecrease in rainfall in states like Utter Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar by 4.42 and 7.77mm/year respectively. Average decrease in rainfall in India between 1951-2010 was 2.21mm/year. Climate change varied in India based on the season. There was increase intemperature by 0.01C per year between 1951-210 in monsoon season. In winter season, thisincrease in temperature was by 0.02C per year from 1951-2010. Reverse trend was observedin terms of rainfall in summer and monsoon season in India in last 50 years. There wasincrease in rainfall in summer season by 0.33 mm/year from 1951-2010, while there wasdecrease in rainfall in monsoon season by 0.70 mm/year from 1951-2010. It has beenpredicted that, there would be slight decrease in the precipitation in the initial decades.However, by 2100, there would be overall increase in rain in India. By 2050, there would bereduced rainy days in a year, however, there would be increase in days with extreme rainfallon a single day (Malone and and Brenkert, 2008; O’Brien et al., 2004; Singh et al., 2011). 3
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