Goa: Summer temp could increase by 3-4 deg C in the future, warns report

NEW DELHI: According to a report on the global impact of Climate Change by the CPIE India, peak summer temperatures in various coastal regions of India, including Goa, could rise by 2-4 degrees C (from the present levels) causing a range of catastrophic events that could greatly impact the oceans, cause widespread flooding and destroy the flora and fauna and piscine and aquatic life in rivers, ponds lakes, other water bodies in the region.

Climate change will lead to many more very hot days in the summer and fewer very cold days in the winter. In some areas like Mumbai, winters will disappear.

Higher growth in greenhouse gas emission volumes would cause more frequent and severe temperature extremes. Globally, cold waves have decreased in frequency and in cities like Mumbai, there are hardly 3-5 days in winter when it’s really cold. The higher intensity and severity of individual heat waves can often be attributed to global warming.

Temperature spikes must slow down if we want to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, say climate scientists. Global warming needs to be kept to 1.5C at the maximum by 2100 or else the consequences could be disastrous for our planet.

Scientific estimates based on present mathematical models claim global warming could exceed 4C in the future, leading to devastating heatwaves, millions losing their homes to rising sea levels, and the irreversible loss of plant and animal species across the world.

Several parts of Goa (and Mumbai), it’s beaches, fields and other low-lying areas could be under water by the turn of this century if global warming levels continue to rise. Beaches like those of Candolim and Baga will be initially eroded by sand erosion caused by devastating floods (caused by climatic variations) and whatever is left of the eroded beaches would be inundated by rising sea levels which would be in the range of 2 to 6 meters.

Extreme weather events like continuous floods and long heat waves of 10 to 12 days at a stretch are already more intense across the globe, threatening lives and livelihoods with devastation.

With further warming, some regions could become uninhabitable, as farmland turns into desert or gets inundated with saline sea waters. East Africa has seen several repetitive seasons of failed rains, which the UN’s World Food Programme says has put up to 22 million people at risk of severe hunger due to vegetable and food grain shortage and in the peril of death.

Extreme temperatures can also increase the risk of wildfires – as seen in Europe and the Americas. France and Germany recorded about seven times more land burnt between January and the middle of July 2022, compared with the average in the years earlier. Goa too has seen several forest fires with the frequency and intensity increasing annually.

Hotter temperatures also mean that previously frozen ground covered in layers of ice, will melt in places like Siberia, releasing greenhouse gases trapped for centuries into the atmosphere, further worsening climate change.

In other regions, extremely heavy rainfall caused historic, unprecedented flooding – as was seen in China, Pakistan and Nigeria.

People living in poorer and developing countries are expected to suffer the most as they have fewer resources to adapt to climate change, the report says.