Did climate change cause those floods?

- OPINION - The
Hindu
Tuesday, March 29, 2016

11:31 AM

Determining whether extreme weather events are caused by climate change

is crucial in planning for risks. Else, we will reach a situation in which
corrective action may not be enough to protect us
Over the past several years, headlines on weather-related extreme events
have included heavy downpours followed by floods, droughts, storms, heat
and cold waves, and wild fires. Such events typically destroy lives, property
and ecosystems while stretching the capacities of disaster management
departments and coffers for emergency funds in various parts of the world.
Protecting people before and after major floods, storms, and extreme
events is a core part of our business, said Karsten Lffler, Managing Director
of Allianz Climate Solutions.
Since one of the main impacts anticipated from climate change is an increase
in the intensity, frequency or duration of extreme events, there is usually a
lot of interest from the media and the public after an extreme event to learn
if it was due to global warming. The challenge that scientists and insurers
face in responding to such questions is that of attribution that is, to
what extent can one consider climate change to be the cause of an extreme
event?
Most such events have one or more components that are not related to
climate change. For example, incompetent forest management practices
contribute to fires. Poor land use planning contributed to heavy downpours
and floods in Chennai last year. Consequently, what experts are trying to do
to understand attribution is to separate the climate signal from everything
else. There are generally nine kinds of extreme events that are considered:
heat and cold waves, droughts, wildfires, extreme rainfall, tropical and other
cyclones, extreme snow and ice events, and severe convective storms.
Scientific studies of extreme weather events and their attribution to global
warming may help various groups such as planners, emergency responders,
policymakers and insurance companies. Better knowledge of the risk
contributes to how communities, governments, investors and others prepare
for the future, with regard to planning cities, proposed infrastructure, natural
resources or food security.
Determining attribution
Can scientists tell if an event is caused by climate change?
In order to determine attribution, scientists run climate models to simulate
an event or they rely on the observational record from which they may
estimate the statistical chance and magnitude of an extreme event. Often,
they use both these kinds of approaches.
According to a recent report from the U.S. National Academies titled
Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change,
event attribution is more reliable when based on sound physical principles,
consistent evidence from observations, and numerical models that can
replicate the event. All these conditions are not satisfied for every type of
extreme weather event. Where long records exist, good models are
available, and contribution from non-climactic factors such as human activity
can be better considered, attribution turns out to be more robust. Scientists
confidence in attribution to climate change varies among the kinds of events.
There is greater confidence in attributing heat and cold waves, for example,
over the other kinds of events described above. With
regard to extratropical
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over the other kinds of events described above. With regard to extratropical
or mid-latitude cyclones and convective storms, it appears that there is little
to no confidence in attributing them to climate change.
Another confounding issue is that there is a natural variability in the
occurrence of weather events in any case, so scientists would be looking for
a signal that is over and above the natural variability. For this reason, it is
difficult for a scientist to be absolutely sure that a particular singular event
has been caused by climate change.
As efforts to improve our understanding of extreme events improve, the
ability for attribution is expected to improve. As in any other kinds of
scientific studies, the accuracy improves with various advances including
validation across different approaches, advances in modelling methods, and
the accuracy of historical records of such events.
Fat tails and insurance
Global insurance companies were among the earliest groups in the world to
ring the alarm on climate change. They are on the frontlines since their
business is to estimate the risk of extreme events and then provide
protection from their potential impacts. The profits they make arise from the
fact that such events are rare. As their frequency, magnitude and impacts
increase, the companies losses escalate. Some insurers are, in fact, limiting
their coverage to those in areas with a moderate risk to climate change
impacts and are expanding their business and activities to include solutions
to climate change.
Scientists sometimes use the term fat tail to describe extreme events. A
normal distribution curve, what we know as a bell curve, shows a lot of
variation near the average, but produces very few points at the far end of the
curve. Biological parameters such as height of Indian women or men are
examples of normal curves. In a fat-tailed distribution, on the other hand,
portions of the curve that are distant from the average are thicker, and this
implies that there is a higher chance of large deviations from the average.
Climate models generally assume a normal distribution rather than a fat tail
distribution around the mean, thus ignoring the low probability high-impact
events. Economists and some scientists have been telling us that we need to
be prepared for extreme temperature and weather events. Gernot Wagner
and Martin Weitzman explain the implications of fat tails for climate policy in
their book, Climate Shocks: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet.
Many of the points discussed here may appear nuanced, perhaps not
significant, and also difficult to address within the regular political cycles of
4-5 years. But it is the extreme weather events and their incidence that are
beginning to increase our everyday experience of climate change. We do not
have the capacity to appreciate a change in average temperatures over
50-100 years, but can see what havoc an unusually intense storm or severe
drought can cause in our own lifetime.
International agreements such as the recent Paris climate pact and the global
targets for sustainable development set goals for governments and political
parties to enable nations and communities to address the risks the world
faces in the medium and longer terms. We must address anticipated risks
even before all our models become accurate enough to estimate every detail
of climate extremes. Otherwise, we will reach thresholds beyond which
making corrective improvements to deal with climate change may not yield
the protection we need.
(Sujatha Byravan is Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Study of
Science, Technology and Policy, Bengaluru.)
We must address anticipated risks even before all our models become
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We must address anticipated risks even before all our models become
accurate enough to estimate every detail of climate extremes
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Why we must have water budgets - OPINION - The Hindu

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

11:42 AM

1) In India it is scientifically proven that groundwater is

overexploited and there is an urgent need to conserve it and
use it judiciously. Why do you think its exploitation continues?
What innovative measures would you suggest to use water
judiciously? Discuss. (200 Words)
The protest by farmers in Chikballapur recently, over the
scarcity of drinking water, received extensive news coverage as
it halted Bengaluru in its tracks after key highways were
blocked. Interestingly, very little of that coverage was devoted
to the groundwater crisis that underpins the problem in such
regions.
Groundwater plays an important role in our lives and Indias
economy, but it is disappearing fast. There is mounting
evidence that we are extracting more than can be naturally
replenished. In the hard-rock aquifers of peninsular India,
drilling 800 ft or deeper is becoming the norm. Groundwaterdependent towns and villages spend an increasing fraction of
their budgets chasing the water table. Stories abound of
farmers spending their life savings or taking loans to drill a
borewell, but failing to find water. If we run out of
groundwater, millions of people will be left without any means
to sustain themselves.
Scientific evidence also points to over-exploitation. The Central
Ground Water Board classifies all blocks in India based on the
fraction of recharge that is extracted and trends in long-term
groundwater levels. Since 2004, almost a third of blocks have
been classified over-exploited or semi-critical. If we
understand the problem and if the consequences are so severe,
why are we unable to address it? The answer lies partly in
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why are we unable to address it? The answer lies partly in

politics, partly in the invisible nature of groundwater, and partly
in our reliance on simple techno-economic fixes.
Flawed regulatory structure
Electricity is supplied to farmers free of cost. This policy made
sense when groundwater was abundant in the 1980s. Indeed, it
helped millions of farmers escape poverty. But today, where
groundwater levels have fallen hundreds of feet below the
ground, the subsidy is actually only utilised by the richest
farmers who can afford to drill deep. And even so, not all are
lucky enough to strike water. Access to groundwater in hardrock regions has almost become a lottery. Yet in the absence of
alternative water sources, charging farmers for electricity is
seen as political suicide.
Groundwater is inherently difficult to monitor and control, in
part because of its invisibility, which also perpetuates the
illusion that each well is independent. The myth is enshrined in
Indian groundwater law that allows landowners to extract as
much as they want. In reality, not only is groundwater within an
aquifer interconnected, but aquifers and rivers are also
interconnected. So depleting groundwater means drying rivers.
Despite this, groundwater and rivers are regulated by different
agencies that do not properly account for the linkages between
them, often double counting the quantum of the resource.
Much of the current action on the ground is through technoeconomic fixes. These have clear benefits in terms of reducing
pumping costs and using local aquifers instead of building big,
expensive dams. But what they do not do is create new
water.
Boosting recharge through rainwater harvesting structures such
as small check dams is a popular measure. However, any water
that recharges is water that does not flow downstream. Often
users located near check dams simply extract more water,
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users located near check dams simply extract more water,

while users further downstream wonder why their rivers and
tanks are drying up. Another technological solution is to
improve efficiency through subsidised drip irrigation or energysaving pumps. Again, these have often resulted in farmers
increasing their irrigation area with no decrease in water
extracted. And farmers are not alone; conscientious urban
dwellers take pride in reusing wastewater for gardens and
parks. But this could result in more wasteful water use, with the
additional wastewater used in lawns or golf courses where
none previously existed.
Science and fairness
Techno-economic fixes do not address the underlying zerosum game nature of water resource use. Ultimately, the water
management problem is that of allocating the water available
each year among users both people and the ecosystem.
Without understanding how much water is available, how
much is being used and by whom, solving Indias water crisis is
going to be a non-starter.
The way forward is comprehensive water budgeting,
simultaneously in each watershed and the river basin as a
whole. Water budgets at the watershed level will inform
communities about how much water they have, so it can be
equitably shared within communities. Water budgets for the
river basin will inform communities how much must be left for
downstream users, ensuring that water resources are allocated
between communities fairly and transparently.
Given the zero-sum nature of the game and the impossibility of
creating new water, it is likely that we cannot restore the
water balance in severely depleted regions without painful cuts
in water use. However, there are some glimmers of hope.
Water users everywhere are worried about the disappearing
resource and willing to engage. The trick lies in combining
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resource and willing to engage. The trick lies in combining

technology (low-water-use crops, xeriscaping) and economic
incentives that reduce actual water use (cash-for-blue
schemes) without reducing productivity or quality of life. This
needs a strong water governance system based on awareness
building, science and a commitment to fairness and
sustainability.
- Veena Srinivasan and Sharachchandra Lele are Fellows at the
Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for
Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bengaluru.
If we run out of groundwater, millions of people will be left
without any means to sustain themselves
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