With lightning on an average striking four persons dead in every five days during a year in Odisha, the fact of the matter is it simultaneously also indicates to some ‘thunderous’ upheavals happening in the State’s climatic landscape, especially, when Odisha had recorded on average around two deaths a day during the period of April — August 2015.
This surge has even compelled the Indian Met Office to put the State on watch list. Odisha in the year 2015 had recorded a national high of 240 deaths owing to lightning strikes in a time-span of just around 150 days. For which, the IMD last year had recognised this as a ‘significant’ weather event observed in the country.
Though thunder deaths this year has been very low till end of May, courtesy poor rainfall activity, with a high of 17 deaths on a single day on June 1, a danger of higher order looms large over Odisha as State’s over 60 per cent of thunder deaths took place in August and September only, revealed an analysis by the local Met office here on pattern of thunder-squalls in the State, which covered a time-span of around 30-years.
According to Prof GS Bhatt, lead scientist at IIS Bangalore, who has conducted a CAIPEEX study (Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment) in Odisha, a few years back, aerosols or commonly known as dust particles have a close interaction with clouds which together determines rainfall over a landscape. He warned, “High concentration of dust particles impede rainfall and heightens the possibility of intense thunder squalls.”
More so, IMD Bhubaneswar Director Sarat Sahu explained that higher the mean day temperature lower would be the atmospheric pressure, which would then trigger rainfall over a landscape if the moisture level in upper atmosphere is sufficient to aid the rainfall phenomenon. He then cautioned, “Abnormally higher mean day temperature would then see a deep fall in atmospheric pressure and such abnormal high-low changes give a red carpet to thunder squalls.”
According to environmentalists, only good green cover in a landscape has a salutary effect on controlling both dust concentration in air and high temperature by restricting heat insulation. The heightened lethal thunder strikes in Odisha indicate inadequate green cover in the State which is resulting in higher dust concentration in air and heating-up phenomenon in Odisha. Result: the State is gradually slipping into the grip of climate change affects. And, data lends credence on ground as India State of Forest Report 2015 reveals loss of a whopping 13sqkm of tree cover every month in Odisha.