Climate Change

Climate Change is a long term change in the climate due to emission of greenhouse gases (Greenhouse gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)).

To understand Climate Change, we should begin with understanding greenhouse effect: 

The Greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth’s surface. When the Sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, some of it is reflected back to the space in the form of infrared heat and the rest is absorbed and radiated back to earth surface.This radiated energy warms the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth. This process maintains the Earth’s temperature at around 33 degrees Celsius warmer than it would otherwise be, allowing life on Earth to exist.

As per climate change scientists , increase in emissions of greenhouse gases by human activities trapped the heat that was meant to be reflected back to space and this heat increased the warming on planet and the consequences of adverse changes in weather had become difficult to predict. However, some of the observable consequences as per NASA and World Bank are : 

Agriculture

While CO2 is essential for plant growth, all agriculture depends also on steady water supplies, and climate change is likely to disrupt those supplies through floods and droughts.

Health

Warmer winters would mean fewer deaths, particularly among vulnerable groups like the aged. However, the same groups are also vulnerable to additional heat, and deaths attributable to heatwaves are expected to be approximately five times as great as winter deaths prevented. It is widely believed that warmer climes will encourage migration of disease-bearing insects like mosquitoes and malaria is already appearing in places it hasn’t been seen before.

Groundwater

Many parts of India are already experiencing water stress. Even without climate change, satisfying future demand for water will be a major challenge because.Studies have found that the threat to water security is very high over central India, along the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats, and in India’s northeastern states.Over exploitation of water resources have made the problem worse.                

Sea-level Rise

With India close to the equator, the sub-continent would see much higher rises in sea levels than higher latitudeSea-level rise and storm surges would lead to saltwater intrusion in the coastal areas, impacting agriculture, degrading groundwater quality, contaminating drinking water, and possibly causing a rise in diarrhea cases and cholera outbreaks, as the cholera bacterium survives longer in saline water.