NEW DELHI: The year 2023 was the second warmest on record in the country since 1901 and the year witnessed 2,376 human casualties due to extreme weather events with lightning and thunderstorm alone contributing to over 50% of the total deaths, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday.
“The annual mean land surface air temperature averaged over India during 2023 was 0.65 degree Celsius above the long term average (1981-2010 period), making it the second warmest year on record since 1901. The highest warming was observed in 2016 when the anomaly was 0.71 degree Celsius,” said the India Meteorological Department chief, M Mohapatra, while releasing the yearly review of different weather events.
Globally, the year 2023 was, however, the “warmest year on record” with reporting the global mean temperature around 1.40 (± 0.12) degree Celsius above the pre-industrial level (1850 – 1900 average) till October. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) will release the final figure later, taking into account the global average temperatures of November and December.
Such a high temperature anomaly globally as well as in India could be attributed to El Nino conditions (warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that impacts monsoon negatively). The WMO has already flagged that the warming El Nino event of this year is likely to “further fuel the heat in 2024”.
As far as casualties due to extreme weather events in India are concerned, thunderstorms and lightning, put together, were the biggest killer in the country last year (1,276 deaths) followed by floods and heavy rains (862) and heat waves (166). The country reported more such casualties last year compared to 2022 when 2,227 people were killed in extreme weather-related events.
Mohapatra, however, said India Meteorological Department’s figures on human casualties could just be indicative at this juncture and final data could be derived from other agencies’ records later.
Preliminary data shows that Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of casualties followed by the states of Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
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