Bhubaneswar: Cyclone Tauktae and now Cyclone Yaas. One after another. Why are we witnessing so many of them, especially in the Arabian Sea? Is climate change fuelling them?
Oceans soak up more than 90% of the heat generated by greenhouse gases, leading to rising water temperatures. As cyclones draw their energy from warm waters, the rising temperatures are causing intense storms to become more common, experts say.
“Now what is happening — the Arabian Sea temperatures, the ocean’s surface temperatures — are warming rapidly,” climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology told AFP, the financial daily ‘mint’ reported.
Rising sea levels could also boost storm surges from cyclones, making them even more deadly and destructive.
The Arabian Sea factor
This is the first time since the start of satellite records in 1980 in India that there have been four consecutive years of pre-monsoon cyclones in the Arabian Sea.
“One of the reasons that we are seeing more and more storms and cyclones in the tropical regions, especially regions like Arabian Sea and all, is because of ocean warming, rapid ocean warming,” Koll was quoted as saying.
“The Arabian Sea is one of the fastest-warming basins across the global oceans,” he added.
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