India's coastline to bear the brunt of climate crisis, several districts to face excess heat within 15 years: Study

Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat among states set to see spike in temperatures.

Bengaluru: Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts are set to see excess heat with temperatures set to go up by 1.1 degrees Celsius within the next 15 years while several districts in India's coastline are projected to see much worse, a new assessment by researchers from Azim Premji University says.

Many climate change projections usually focus on the changes taking place 30, 40 or 50 years later. Such studies are often seen as projecting distant futures. The study looked at the period of 2021-2040, to make the extent of the crisis "very real".

While districts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha are expected to see mercury climbing 1.1 to 1.3 degrees C, the rest of the country will see an increase of at least 0.55 to 0.98 degrees C. What seems like a small increase may translate into a deadly 'wet bulb' phenomenon in many of the coastal areas.

For instance, the study notes that the "entire east coast is a furnace" during summer. Slightest increase in temperatures will have a major impact in these areas, especially the poor and vulnerable from marginalised castes and sections of the society.

"The data in this report is a mirror that reflects a reality we can no longer afford to ignore. For decades, we treated climate change as a global abstraction — a problem of polar ice caps and distant centuries. But our findings show that for the Indian coastline, the crisis is hyper-local and immediate...We have a short window of time to move from reactive mitigation to proactive adaptation," Harini Nagendra, Director, School of Climate Change and Sustainability, Azim Premji University, said.

Meanwhile, the projected 15 cm rise in the sea level between 2020 and 2050 is likely to bring intense storms and floods, leading to increased coastal erosion. A warming ocean will create favourable circumstances for the formation of more cyclones, the study noted.

The study derived its projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 6 (CMIP6), the widely accepted modelling project designed to understand the past, present and future changes in the climate. The study corrected the data for regional bias to help various stakeholders make informed decisions in the face of climate change.

"What greater call to action do we need? We must get together to shape policy action on the ground, also calling on business, civil society, and the general population," Anurag Behar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation, said in the foreword to the report.