A decade back south west monsoon
used to be languorous incessant rain, sometimes intense, but mostly dreamy stretch
of cirrus stratus clouds and lively scenes. Rainy season stalled action, people
shifted to special diet, lazy intonation of prayers and ayurvedic treatment for
yearly rejuvenation. Intensity, and frequency of these intense rains, have
increased dramatically in the last few years. Rain is now dreaded. It has
become an omen for sinister natural forces in abidance. Kerala, a strip of fragile
land locked between mountain and ocean, is extremely vulnerable. In my
understanding Ockhi cyclone in 2017 was the trigger point indication of irreversible
climate flip. Ockhi was a rare cyclone that crossed from east coast to west
coast -taking people in the region by complete surprise, and travelled almost
2000km. After Ockhi there are clear indications that weather is detaching from
fixed pattern into increasingly troubling unknown, things are not going to be
the same again.
Ocean temperature is steadily
increasing and warming of Arabian sea is estimated to be 1.5 times higher than
other oceans around the world. This creates dire situation. One of the significant
outcome is change in pattern of cloud formation. Sea surface temperature rise creates
atmospheric instability and intense low pressure, as also warming atmosphere
increases the capacity of air to hold moisture, leading to formation of
cumulonimbus clouds. Cumulonimbus clouds are vertical clouds unlike what you
generally see during monsoon; the cirrus stratus spread out. Cumulonimbus clouds
rise like a plume, born through convective current as warm air rises and cools,
they rise higher and higher, thick and motionless stretching to wide area hence
giving rise to static charge. They carry enormous amount of water leading
to extreme rainfall and lightening and many a times cloud burst, and what makes it particularly worrisome is that it is difficult to predict. If you
observed rain, SW monsoon is generally quieter unlike NE monsoon that happens
during November-December -you could see cumulonimbus cloud building up during
day time followed by intense rains and lightening in the night (as a youngster I even hid under the bed to escape the high decibel lightening noise of NE
monsoon!, also recall, in the aftermath going to public library in Kochi to find about lightening). Things have taken a definite turn in the last few years. SW monsoon
is now about cumulonimbus, intense windy rain and lightning, immediately followed by
sunny and blue sky. Few weeks back I was caught up in this sort of rain, it was
so intense that within matter of few minutes I was wading in one feet of water,
lightening also killed two people. Such dramatic intense rain is increasing in
frequency, and can easily turn catastrophic in fragile ecosystem. Be very
concerned, something sinister is looming in the horizon. Be prepared people.
