By IANS,
New Delhi: The unusual rise in summer temperatures this year is due to global warming and there is enough scientific evidence to back the claim, an environmental organisation said Monday.
Quoting various scientific studies on climate change, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said that several long-term environmental changes – including rising temperature – being witnessed in India and across the world could be connected to climate change.
“The unusually high temperatures this year are in line with the overall warming trends of the last decade,” said a statement released by the CSE here.
It said that according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) data, 2009 was the hottest year ever recorded for India.
The mean annual temperature stood at 25.55 degrees Celsius, almost a degree above the normal. Globally too, the year 2009 was the second warmest year ever recorded, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US.
Globally, 11 out of 12 years (from 1995 to 2006) rank among the 12 warmest years on record since 1850.
Quoting a study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, the statement said: “During the period 1901 to 2007, the all India mean temperature had gone up by 0.51 degrees Celsius in every 100 years.”
“The maximum and minimum temperatures for the same period had gone up by 0.71 degrees Celsius and 0.27 degrees Celsius per 100 years. The study also found that the increase had been higher since 1970.”
Delhi recorded its hottest day of the season Sunday with the maximum temperature soaring to 41.6 degrees Celsius, six degrees above normal.
In March, the mean maximum and minimum temperatures were 33.8 degrees Celsius and 18.6 degrees Celsius respectively – again, far higher than the average normal, making it the second warmest March since 1901 next only to the month of March in 1953.