The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday said that the average mean land surface temperature was 0.29 degree Celsius above normal over the country in 2020 and it was the eighth warmest year on record since nation-wide records commenced in 1901.
According to the IMD, extreme weather events like extremely heavy rainfall, floods, landslides, thunderstorm, lightning and cold waves had claimed over 1900 lives in 2020.
The IMD said that the averaged seasonal mean temperatures were also above the average during all the seasons except pre-monsoon season while averaged mean monthly temperatures were warmer than the normal during all the months of the year except March and June in the country.
“The monsoon and post-monsoon seasons with mean temperature anomalies (Actual temperature-Normal temperature) of +0.43 degree Celsius and +0.53 degree Celsius respectively mainly contributed to this warming. Mean temperature during the winter was also above normal with anomaly of +0.14 degree Celsius. However, during the pre-monsoon season temperature was below normal (-0.03 degree Celsius),” the IMD said in a statement on Climate of India during 2020.
The five warmest years on record in order were: 2016 (+0.71 degree Celsius), 2009 (+0.55 degree Celsius), 2017 (+0.541 degree Celsius), 2010 (+0.539 degree C), and 2015 (+0.42 degree Celsius). It may be mentioned that 12 out of 15 warmest years were during the recent 15 years (2006-2020).Past decade (2001-2010/ 2011-2020) was also the warmest decade on record with anomalies of 0.23 degree Celsius /0.34 degree Celsius.
The country averaged annual mean temperature during 1901-2020 showed an increasing trend of 0.62 degree Celsius /100 years with significant increasing trend in maximum temperature (0.99 degree Celsius/100 years) and relatively lower increasing trend (0.24 degree Celsius/100 years) in minimum temperature.
The Global mean surface temperature anomaly during 2020 (January to October as per WMO state of the global climate) is +1.2 degree Celsius.
The IMD said that the country also experienced other high impact weather events like, extremely heavy rainfall, floods, landslide, thunderstorm, lightning and cold waves. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were the most adversely affected states during the year which reportedly claimed more than 350 deaths from each state mainly due to thunderstorm, lightning & cold wave events.
Heavy rainfall and flood related incidents reportedly claimed over 600 lives from different parts of the country during pre-monsoon, monsoon & post-monsoon seasons. Of these, 129 lives were reportedly claimed from Assam, 72 from Kerala [Specifically, 65 persons reportedly claimed dead in a single day from Pettimudi in Munnar, Idukki district of Kerala on 7th August due to landslide.], 61 from Telangana (while, 59 lives reportedly claimed only during the period 1st to 20th October), 54 lives from Bihar, 50 from Maharashtra, 48 Uttar Pradesh, & 38 from Himachal Pradesh.
Thunderstorms and lightning reportedly have claimed 815 lives from different parts of the country. Among these, 280 from Bihar, 220 from Uttar Pradesh, 122 from Jharkhand, 72 from Madhya Pradesh, 23 from Maharashtra and 20 from Andhra Pradesh were significant.
“Cold wave conditions mainly prevailed over central parts the country especially in the month of January. It caused deaths of about 150 people. Of these deaths, 88 deaths were reported from Uttar Pradesh alone, 45 from Bihar only on single day on 1st January & 16 from Jharkhand,” the IMD said.
“The annual rainfall over the country was 109 % of long period average (LPA) of 117.7 cms. During 2020, 5 cyclones formed over the North Indian Ocean,” it added.