NEW DELHI: Global warming is expected to decrease substantially the cereal production potential in Asia, particularly in India, according to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) " Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" released last week.

Briefing the media on the implications of climate change for Asia, IPCC chairperson R.K. Pachauri said endemic morbidity and mortality due to diarrhoeal diseases, primarily associated with flood and droughts, were expected to rise in East, South and Southeast Asia due to projected changes in the hydrological cycle associated with global warming. Mr. Pachauri said climate change was likely to affect agriculture adversely and increase the risk of hunger and water scarcity due to enhanced variability and more rapid melting of glaciers.

There would be loss of the cultivated land and nursery area for fisheries by inundation and coastal erosion in the low-lying areas of tropical Asia.

Climate change related to melting of glaciers could severely impact a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindu-Kush region because of the unfavourable consequences for downstream agriculture in most south Asian countries that relied on glacier melt for irrigation water.

Mr. Pachauri said the projected decrease in winter precipitation over the Indian sub-continent would reduce the total seasonal precipitation during December, January and February, implying lesser storage and greater water stress.

Melting of glaciers in the Himalayas was projected to increase flooding, rock avalanches from destabilised slopes and affect water resources within the next two to three decades. "We conclude that warming caused by human activities has likely had a discernible impact on the global level on many physical and biological systems with some systems being more vulnerable," Mr. Pachauri said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail