Humidity is making things worse
The past two months have been quite uneasy for the residents of Kashmir Valley who are not used to witness soaring temperatures. The temperature has witnessed an upward trend in the otherwise cool place like Kashmir and the phenomenon is hurting every sector.
Ironically, Kashmir known for its cool and pleasing summers is now facing a new kind of discomfort — unrelenting humidity as residents are struggling under unusually sultry conditions, with high moisture levels that are rare for the Himalayan valley.
More importantly, a sustained rise in dew points and night temperatures, which is very uncommon for Kashmir this time of year, is another worry for all of us to ponder over.
This month alone humidity levels have spiked over the past three weeks, turning once-pleasant evenings into sticky, sleepless nights. According to the Meteorological Department in Srinagar, humidity has been hovering around 80-90 compared to the usual 50-60% in July.
Though this type of weather pattern is typically seen in places like the plains across Delhi and elsewhere but is becoming a reality in Kashmir now.
The Valley for now is clearly experiencing shifts in its microclimate. These events can no longer be called anomalies, but are becoming a new normal. As such even experts have been left baffled who attribute this discomforting change to altered wind circulation patterns, warming of the western Himalayan zone, and moisture incursion from southwesterly winds, which are now reaching deeper into Kashmir.
These weather changes are increasing humidity, increasing the rainfall variability, and making our nights warmer. The persistent humidity is also impacting health and agriculture, with reports of rising cases of dehydration, fungal infections in crops, and stress on power infrastructure due to increased usage — once uncommon in Kashmiri homes.
The change in weather patterns which is forcing us to adapt to different and emerging needs is becoming a new normal. However, experts have been warning that such patterns can have a long term effect on various sectors.
For example experts are suggesting a changed crop pattern and even improving the climate-resilient infrastructure, but all these may take years to finally reach a point where the change in weather pattern will not impact us so deeply.
What we need right now is to start from a scratch and help rebuild the environment here which has otherwise seen lot of devastation at our hands. We should immediately resort to increasing our green cover and this can be done at individual levels as well rather than waiting for the government and other agencies to come forward and offer a helping hand.
We need to fight this collectively and we also need to make a start soon, for tomorrow may prove to be too late.
