Variability in climate need not be attributed to global warming as is being done in the past few years, said Anand Sharma, chief of the Meteorological Department in Uttarakhand.

Sharma, who has been delivering lectures on the issue at various scientific and educational institutions in Uttarakhand and New Delhi over the past one year, firmly believes that there was a great hype being created as far as the phenomenon of global warming is concerned.

“In the past one hundred years, the average temperature of the earth has increased by just 0.3 degrees Celsius and on the basis of this , dire predictions cannot be made,”Sharma told The Pioneer on Friday. Most of the people today believe that drastic climate changes are taking place in the world but this is not true.

“It is being said and propagated that glaciers and polar bears will disappear, the sea level will rise, biodiversity will decrease, forest fires will increase and the frequency and intensity of cyclones will increase. But the fact is that there is no adequate data on which such ideas can be based”, he said.

“Inter-annual climate variability is being seen as climate change and this is leading to all kind of misconceptions and misinformation,” he added while giving the example of the Doon valley.

“People here say that they have never heard or seen temperatures crossing 40 degrees Celsius in summer in the valley whereas when we look at the data available with us, the highest temperature so far in the valley was on June 4 in the year 1902.The temperature was 43.9 degrees Celsius”.

“Last year, Doon had a very good monsoon while this year, it is not good . But we cannot describe this as a drastic climate change”,Sharma said “Before coming to any conclusion, one should have a look at the data of the last hundred years. In the year 1907 ,Doon received annual rainfall of 1137 mm, while it was 3190mm in the year 1966.

According to him, people also tended to make statements about snowfall without any adequate ground. “We have no good quality data as far as snowfall is concerned”.

He said that another misconception among people was that rainfall was related to the tree cover . “We should remember that rain came first on this earth and the trees came later.It used to rain even when there was no vegetation on the earth and .the hydrological cycle can never be completed locally.However, trees do modify the micro-climate.Litchi trees in Doon used to do this .Now the trees have been replaced by apartments “.

“In the year 2004, March was a dry month in Dehra Dun.When I checked the data, March was also dry in the year 1925.But now, everything is being put down to global warming”.

“In Doon, we can say that the growing pollution, coming up of a concrete jungle, change in land use and land cover can lead to increase in temperatures.This will be due to what is called the urban heat island effect,” he said.

Sharma believes that instead of talking about global warming and raising a hue and cry about it, things that were in front of us should be paid attention to. “ In Doon, there is less water available to us but we do not think how we can reduce our consumption of water .We do not know how to check the intense pollution being caused by the black smoke from the old and inefficient vehicles running in the valley.But we all talk of global warming”.