A massive flood in Uttarakhand's Joshimath area on Sundayis a rare incident of a glacial burst, and may be "a climate changeevent", say leading climate scientists.
Satellite and Google Earth images do not show a glaciallake near the region, but there is a possibility that there may be a waterpocket, or lake inside the glacier, in the region that may have erupted leadingto the disaster, said Mohd Farooq Azam,who is an Assistant Professor at IIT Indore.
"We need further analysis, weather reports and datato confirm if this indeed was the case. It's unlikely that this was acloudburst, since weather reports in Chamoli district show sunny weather tilltoday with no record of precipitation," he said.
"There is no doubt that global warming has resultedin the warming of the region. Climate change driven erratic weather patternslike increased snowfall and rainfall, and warmer winters have led to themelting point of a lot of snow falling. The thermal profile of ice isincreasing.... where earlier the temperature of ice ranged from minus six tominus 20 degree Celsius, it is now minus two, making it more susceptible tomelting," he said.
Another scientist, Anjal Prakash, who is the ResearchDirector and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Indian School of Business inHyderabad, said prima facie this looks very much like a climate change event.
"The IPCC's Special Report on Oceans and Cryospherein a Changing Climate reports that climate change has altered the frequency andmagnitude of natural hazards. The scientists reported with medium confidencethat in some regions, snow avalanches involving wet snow have increased, whilethe rain on snow floods have also increased at lower elevations insprings," Prakash said.
"We do not have the data now to give you informationon what has caused the avalanche in Chamoli district but what we know, primafacie, is that this looks very much like a climate change event as the glaciersare melting due to global warming”, he added.
He noted that the impact of global warming on glacialretreat is well documented. "The recent assessment report called the HinduKush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) report facilitatedby ICIMOD has also pointed these out."
The report shows that temperatures are rising in theHindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region and the rise in global temperature will havemore impact in the Himalayan region due to elevation-dependent warming.
"If the world can keep the temperature rise to below1.5 degrees Celsius, in the HKH region, it would translate to at least a riseof 1.8 degrees, and in some places, above 2.2 degrees. Himalayan regions arealso the least monitored region and this event actually shows how vulnerable wecould be.
"I would request the government to spend moreresources in monitoring the region better so that we have more information aboutthe change process. The result would be that we are more aware and coulddevelop better adaptation practices."
Prakash is an UN's Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) author who was Coordinating Lead Author of the special report onOceans and Cryosphere in 2018 and Lead Author of the ongoing Sixth AssessmentReport of the IPCC.