As the threat of climate change looms large on India, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has come up with a laboratory that will help in identifying “timing and frequency” of the climate change. The varsity had collaborated with the State university of Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim to work on climate change under the banner of Inter-University Consortium earlier and now promises to raise manpower to work on the Government funded initiative. By recording the timing, frequency and other aspects of climate change, the university underlines it would help the country to keep a watch at the pace it was nearing to the changing patterns of climate.
“This is the first laboratory of its type under the Indian University System which would not only facilitate dating the sediments specific to land forms evolved under a specific climate phase, but also date any archaeological artifacts of burnt origin for historical reconstructions”, Prof Milap Sharma, Principal Investigator told The Pioneer.
The facility would strengthen the scientific enquiry of the past climate change as a proxy and help in building the manpower for climate related research in cryosphere as well as archeological investigations.
“This facility has the capability of dating sediments up to half a million years, thus providing a possibility of zeroing on the climate phase and identifying the timing and frequency of climate change,” Sharma added.
Sharma said JNU had collaborated with these universities by training the students to work on the melting of glaciers in Himalayas. “We worked on melting of glaciers and the discharge that will go into the streams. Our effort is to see how climate change affects society,” Sharma added further.
The Government’s Department of Science and Technology have supported it and JNU’s Centre for Study of Regional Development is involved in it.