Ripples In A Teacup

I was planning to take a break from blogging and focus on my final exams which are less than five weeks away, but the wildfires in LA make it impossible for me to do so. I always thought wildfires are a summer-time hazard and we are in the midst of what’s meant to be winter! Some learnings for me: A combination of high temperatures, dryness, and high winds give rise to conditions ripe for fires. We are not meant to have these conditions in the middle of winter, but we do now. And when we do, the smaller spark can set off a large-scale wildfire. In 2024, Southern California had an exceptionally hot summer . In the past, a hot summer is usually followed by fall and early winter rains. This year, the rains went missing and left the landscape parched and ready to burn. Southern California experienced two consecutive years of above-average rainfall prior to this dry spell , leading to an overgrowth of vegetation, which, when dried out, became highly flammable fuel. Wildfires are getti...

  Our planet has been warming up at an unprecedented rate . For the record, last year was the warmest. Ever. Scientists have been scrambling to understand exactly why. We know that the extraordinary heat is fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and El Niño . However, these are not sufficient to explain the unusually rapid temperature rise. Now a new study  published in the journal Science says it has identified one more culprit, namely, the absence of clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back into space and the fewer clouds results in more sunlight reaching the earth. “Albedo” is the fraction of lightthat a surface reflects . If all the light is reflected, the albedo is equal to 1. If 30% is reflected, the albedo is 0.3. The albedo of Earth's surface (atmosphere, ocean, land surfaces) determines how much incoming solar energy, or light, is immediately reflected back to space. This can have an impact on climate.  Apparently, this recent rapid surge in warming is be...

  A report published by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water says that decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle. The global water cycle is off balance “for the firsttime in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havocon economies, food production and lives, according to this report. The water cycle is a global common good (as should be governed as such) since there is interdependence and interconnectedness of communities, countries, and regions across local and transboundary water systems. Some of the key findings of the Report are that: High-population density hotspots such as Northwestern India are particularly vulnerable to challenges associated with water. Poorest 10% of global population obtain over 70% of their annual precipitation from land-based sources. GDP losses from climate change, total water storage, and ...

  Scientists using ice-breaking ships and underwater robotshave found the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting at an acceleratingrate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse, spelling catastrophe forglobal sea level rise. A six-year investigation into the vast Thwaites glacier in Antarctica has concluded with a grim outlook on its future. Often dubbed the “doomsday glacier”, this huge mass of ice is comparable in size to Britain or Florida and its collapse alone would raise sea levels by 65 centimetres. Worse still, this is expected to trigger a more widespread loss of the ice sheet covering West Antarctica, causing a calamitous sea level rise of 3.3 metres and threatening cities like New York, Kolkata and Shanghai. Though the glacier is in anextremely remote and difficult area, the International Thwaites GlacierCollaboration (ITGC), a joint UK-US research programme, has deployed 100scientists there over the past six years, using planes, ships and underwaterrobots...

I just finished the first term of my last year at school. As usual, we had a set of exams before a short break kicked in. I had drastically cut down on my news reading for the last three weeks and couldn’t wait to catch up as soon I got home yesterday after my physics exam. Horrible news from Sweden , a country which I visited once when I was three (I don’t remember a thing) and which I hope to re-visit one day. Apparently Sweden plans to cull 20% of its brown bear population. Licenses have been issued to kill 486 bears. We are told that culling is necessary for sustaining the rest of the bear population and at some level, it does make sense. However, I am very sad to hear this news. The summer of 2024 has been the warmest ever in the Northern Hemisphere, the EU Climate Change monitor has said. This is yet another portent of the disaster we are walking into. In India, thanks to climate change, monsoons have become extremely unpredictable. This year, monsoon rains have continued ...

I’ve been to Maldives once, on holiday, sometime in 2019, much before the Covid-19 pandemic hit India. I distinctly remember feeling very sad when I left, thinking that the low-lying islands would soon be under water, swallowed by rising sea-levels , brought on by climate change and global warming. So, when I came across a news paper article which said that as many as 1,000 low-lying tropical islands in Maldives, which were once considered doomed to disappear, are now actually growing in size. According to researchers who analysed decades of aerial photos and satellite imagery , most islands have either remained stable or even grown in size. The secret apparently lies in the power of waves and currents. As sea levels rose, waves transported more sand and sediment to the shores, replenishing the land that had eroded. Although the islands' shapes and positions may have changed, they did not diminish in size. This gives me hope. We earthlings can survive climate change. However, some ...

When I hold a test tube over a flame, the chemical reaction accelerates. The same happens in our atmosphere when there is a heat wave. Ground-level ozone is made more efficiently in sunny, hot weather since the reactions that create harmful ozone in our atmosphere require sunlight. Therefore, in summer and during heat waves, ozone often reaches dangerous levels, especially in cities.  This New York Times article discusses this phenomenon in detail. In northern India, cold weather worsens the smog . That’s because pollution in cities mixes vertically in the atmosphere. In winter, the height at which this mixing happens shrinks by more than half, raising the concentration of pollution. Heads you win, tails I lose!

A couple of days ago, I chanced about this CNN News Article titled “‘Blast-furnace heat every day’: Record temperatures cancel classes, widening learning gaps across Southeast Asia” and my heart sank (as it usually does when I read anything about climate change and global warming). An 11-year-old student studying in Phnom Penh is quoted as saying: “ My classroom does not have air conditioning. It’s very unpleasant and uncomfortable. On some days, it can even get so hot that it feels like your skin is burning ." I can so relate to that. My own school did not have air conditioning till now, but A/Cs are now being installed. My school is situated very close to the sea. On the other side of the road, lies a park and beyond the park, is the sea. One would assume that a building so close to the sea would get enough breeze to avoid air conditioning, but no, it’s sweltering hot inside our classrooms, not all of which have perfect ventilation and voila, A/Cs are here. Fortunately, my scho...

I read this headline on CNN and my heart stopped for a moment. Various factors cause Earth’s rotation to slow down. The friction of the tides on the ocean floor is one such factor. The melting of polar ice (driven by humans burning planet-heating fossil fuels) causing meltwater to move from the poles toward the equator, further slows the speed of the Earth’s rotation. Our planet’s liquid core spins independently of its solidouter shell. If the core slows down, the solid shell speeds up to maintainmomentum. So, despite polar ice melt exerting a slowing influence, overall theEarth’s rotation is speeding up. As a result, we will soon need to subtract a second for the first time. Though a second doesn’t sound like much, it is significant since computing systems are set up for activities such as stock exchange transactions and need to be accurate to a thousandth of a second. Apparently, manycomputer systems have software enabling them to add a second, but few have thecapability to s...

Yesterday night, I returned to Mumbai after a week in Switzerland. We had spent four snow-full days in Zermatt before we went to Geneva to spend the rest of our holiday. I love snow and can’t have enough of it. Two years ago, we had gone to Kashmir and I still remember that holiday with nostalgia. Switzerland was even better, mainly because of its better infrastructure. Why did we choose Zermatt? Mainly because it gets more snow than most other places in Switzerland and towards the end of winter, we didn’t want to go to Switzerland and not find any snow. This CNN article on an Italian mountain resort facing a snow crunch drives home the problem. There are so many people in this world, especially in Europe, who are dependant on snow for their livelihood. There are so many animals, especially polar bears, which need snow to thrive. As climate change and global warming reduce the amount of snow that we get every year and as winters turn milder and milder, this problem will become mor...

  Electric vehicles have grown in popularity over the years. As the planet gasps for ways to end pollution, electric vehicles seem to be a partial answer to this problem. Or is it really? In the 1800s when automobiles started to replace horse-drawn carriages, inventors experimented with different fuels. Initially, steam-powered vehicles came to the forefront, but soon gasoline powered vehicles started to dominate. Now, advancements in technology and concern about fossil fuels have put electric vehicles on the map. The global electric vehicle (EV) sector is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9% between 2023 and 2035, according to new report from data and analytics company GlobalData,  Power Technology ’s parent company. Broken down by vehicle type, the  report  finds that the passenger EV market is expected to register a CAGR of 26.1% during this period, while the commercial EV sector is predicted to grow 15% during the same time f...

  I visited Kashmir in 2021, just after Christmas. We went to Srinagar first and then to Sonamarg. There were many things that I loved about Kashmir, but the best was the snow. There was some snow in Srinagar and a lot of it in Sonamarg. My brother and I made snowmen and threw snowballs at each other. Sonamarg was a snowy wonderland and I was so sad when it was time for us to leave. This winter, I read the news that the Kashmir valley got no snow until late January . The Himalayas had turned brown! The temperature in Kashmir valley was higher than in Delhi! Not just Kashmir, all the Himalayan regions in India faced a similar sitation. In Himachal Pradesh, the Kangra valley is experiencing drought after 17 years. Snow is missing from the Dhauladhar mountain range and in Shimla. In Uttarakhand, Mussoorie and Auli didn’t have any snow. Experts say the lack of snowfall is due to   the prevalence of El Niño and other meteorological conditions . According to a study titled ‘Wes...

We have three air conditioners in our flat. We don’t use them very often. No, let me clarify further. We use ACs a lot less than my friends and our neighbours do. However, as global warming gets worse, ACs are an easy solution which actually worsens the problem in the long run. By 2050, India will be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits, according to climate experts. And within that time frame, the demand for air conditioners (AC) in the country is also expected to rise nine-fold, outpacing all other appliances, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Apparently, Singapore’s founding father thought air conditioning was the secret to his country’s success. My parents tell me that when they were young, in the 1970s and 1980s, air conditioning was a rarity in India, especially among the middle-classes, mainly because it was unaffordable. Now the prices of AC units are a lot more affordable and in India, middle-class ...

Global warming has many side-effects, one of which is the exacerbation of coral bleaching. Another side-effect is  the proliferation of crown-of-thorns starfish, which are resistant to marine heatwaves and devour coral reefs . The crown-of-thorns starfish (frequently abbreviated to COTS), Acanthaster planci, is a large starfish that preys upon hard, or stony, coral polyps (Scleractinia). The crown-of-thorns starfish receives its name from venomous thorn-like spines that cover its upper surface, resembling the biblical crown of thorns. It is one of the largest starfish in the world. New information about the crown-of-thorns starfish has come from research led by Professor Maria Byrne from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney and published in the journal Global Change Biology.  Byrne and colleagues found that juvenile crown-of-thorns starfish had a higher heat tolerance than not only coral, but also adults of the same species. It has been fou...

Over the past week, catastrophic wildfires destroyed many Hawaiian towns killing more than 100 people and displacing thousands of people. The fires, which are believed to be the deadliest in the US in the last century, erupted on three of Hawaii’s islands forcing visitors to flee and residents to seek emergency shelter. It is possible that power lines likely caused Maui's first reported fire. Since the beginning of August, most of Maui has been under an “abnormally dry” level of drought, according to the US Drought Monitor . But beginning on Tuesday, 8 August, a portion of Maui escalated to a “severe drought” level making the area more susceptible to wildfires. Though the islands are no stranger to some wildfires, the number of fires has increased exponentially over the past century due to human activity and an increase in invasive, flammable grasses, according to the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO). “Nonnative grasslands and shrublands now cover nearly one-quarter...

  Wildfires and summer go hand in hand in certain parts of the world. However, the wildfires in Canada have got me especially worried. Climate change has affected Canada just like other parts of the world, but it looks like Canada is warming up faster than the rest of the world . Thousand of people across Canada are being evacuated and we are being warned that these blazes could last "all summer." Nearly 17,800 square miles have burned since the beginning of 2023. These f orest fires have sent a smoky haze billowing over a large swath of the United States. What’s to be done??? What scares me the most is that there are still apparently sane folks out there asking for proof that these wildfires are fueled by climate change !

There’s so much talk of green and clean energy, one gets the feeling that there is no harm in harnessing the sun and wind and tidal waves to generate electricity and run more cars and planes and ships and spaceships. No! People, we need to consume less as a whole. Even if we have solar-powered electric saws, we should not cut down trees unnecessarily. Sitting in Montpellier, which seems uninhabited by Indian standards, it is easy to not panic or worry about over-consumption. There is a lot less pollution than in India and roads are generally deserted (by Indian standards). However, we DO KNOW that climate change is for real. Sea levels are rising and seasons and climatic patterns have gone for a toss. We need to panic! Reduction of consumption has to be both per capita as well as gross. Gross reduction can be achieved only if we reduce the world’s population. India has already overtaken China as the world’s most populous country. Many countries are worried about the reduction in th...

I’m now in Kerala for a week with my grandparents who live in a village called Mundakayam. Mundakayam is a ninety minute drive from Kottayam town and is at the eastern periphery of Kottayam district. The road from Kottayam to Mundakayam is called KK Road , the KK for “Kottayam – Kumaly” and old milestones marking the distance are still in vogue. Places enroute KK Road are carry the names of the  milestones. So, Mundakayam is the 33 rd Mile (from Kottayam) and where we live is actually the 31 st Mile. Ask someone where they live and pat comes the reply: “Muppathi-Onne” or “Thirty One”. Go past Mundakayam (the 33 rd Mile) for a kilometre or so, cross the bridge across the Manimala River and you’ll be in Idukki District and rubber plantations give way to tea. The bridge across the Manimala River Every time I am in Kerala, I am reminded of how beautiful it is . Possibly the most beautiful tropical place I have ever visited, even counting Goa. Where we live, we are surrounded by ...

Climate change and global warming are very high up on my ‘worry list’ and I found this CNN report about European ski resorts closing because there's no snow, highly distressing. It looks like climate change on account of global warming is on an irreversible course. This year, Europe is having a very mild winter and ski resorts closing down is just one of its impacts. To make things worse, a new study says that up to half of the world’s glaciers could disappear even if ambitious climate targets are hit. We know that we are running out of time and so, what can we do to fight this looming catastrophe? Individual personal sacrifices like using public transport or not using plastic bags will help, but I feel the need of the hour is for big policy changes like: switching to nuclear energy en masse – yes, I feel the cleanliness of nuclear fuel outweighs the risk posed by a leak; banning the manufacture of single use plastic bags and other plastic products – yes, ban the manufacture...

Let me first confess that I used to enjoy playing with firecrackers, although its been over 5 years since the last time i did. Theres just something about seeing that pop of colour and seeing the light you ignited hit the sky- that stirs a gush of excitement within me. Even this year, seeing the colours erupt around the city at night, was undeniably a sight to behold.  It was a sight to behold, but the sounds werent too pleasant. My two cats spent the better part of last weak hiding under beds, trembling and cowering. Here are two photos, both taken from my living room in our 24 th storey flat, which offers a view of the sea and the Bandra-Worli sealink. The first one was taken on October 25 th , the day after Diwali at 8:30 am.  The normally azure blue of the sky was obscured by a thick sheet of smog.     The second photo was taken today, October 30 th , at roughly the same time. While clearly an improvement, the sky hasnt regained its clear blue, and the smog...