Factor Responsible for More Frequent Cloudburst
There are numerous factors responsible for increasing the frequency of cloudbursts, especially in India. These are:
- One of the main reasons for the increase in the frequency of Cloudbursts is Global Warming. The World Meteorological Organization has already informed that there is a 40% chance of ‘Annual average global temperature‘ temporarily reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level baseline. This prediction has been made for at least one of the years till 2025, so the 2016 record for being the warmest year is most likely to break any time between 2022-2025.
- As the temperature will rise, the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture will also rise. Resulting in the warming up of the Indian Ocean, subsequently more warm moisture-laden winds will be moving towards the mountainous or Himalayan regions of the North. Resulting in cloudbursts in the higher regions like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttarakhand.
- The increase in tourism over the last decade has put a lot of pressure on the hilly regions. In order to accommodate the sudden influx of tourism many infrastructural changes are taking place in these areas.
- Large-scale deforestation in hilly regions is being carried out which possibly can be one of the causes of concern, as it raises carbon dioxide amount, directly contributing to global warming.
Cloudburst-affected regions are suffering from land degradation, soil erosion, and the dislocation of plant and forest trees and due to this, the land has become very fragile and vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change.