Hindustan Times (Noida)

The rise of freak weather events

The winter storm in the US is yet another warning. Prepare for extreme scenarios

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Ahuge winter storm is sweeping across the southern United States (US), with Texas being the worst-hit. Millions of people in the state have been struggling to cope with the lack of power and frigid conditions. The extreme weather is expected to continue until the weekend, and deaths attributed to the storm have been recorded in four other states, besides Texas. Many other parts of the world — The Netherland­s, Russia, Syria and Greece — also saw unusually cold weather this week, but nowhere is it as bad as in Texas. Difficult weather conditions across the US have had serious implicatio­ns for the pandemic: Some shipments of vaccines have been delayed and some clinics have had to cancel vaccine appointmen­ts.

While scientists are trying to establish the link between this particular episode of freak weather in the southern US and the climate crisis, there is a growing body of research that has establishe­d the connection between the climate crisis and a phenomenon called the polar vortex. Scientific research suggests warming in the Arctic, where temperatur­es are rising faster than anywhere else on the planet, may be weakening the jet stream that confines the cold air in the northern hemisphere. A weakened jet stream allows freezing air to move to lower latitudes. As experts have pointed out, what is happening in Texas can’t be just seen as a natural event, and is in part due to the climate crisis.

The Texas event and other freak climate events across the world — India too has witnessed such incidents in recent years — are a reminder to government­s that they must re-evaluate their nation’s utility infrastruc­ture for climate resilience, and invest heavily to upgrade them so that they can quickly adapt and function during freak and extreme weather events. For example, the main electric grid in Texas was built with the state’s most common weather extremes in mind — soaring summer temperatur­es that cause millions of Texans to turn up their air conditione­rs — but now it has to be recalibrat­ed to tackle such cold events too. All over the world, operators have to be ready for intense heat waves, floods, water shortages and other calamities, all of which could create unknown risks for electricit­y set-ups. This transition won’t be easy, because most planners face an unpreceden­ted challenge. The extreme weather events of the 21st century will look nothing like those that happened before — and years of past preparatio­n will not provide any workable template.

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