Last decade was India’s hottest on record, with the Indian Meteorological Department calling the effects of global warming “unmistakable” and saying that extreme weather killed more than 1,500 people last year.
India, home to 1.3 billion people, is at the forefront of climate change, suffering devastating floods, dire water shortages and baking temperatures.
The southern city of Chennai last year declared “day zero” as taps ran dry.
Temperatures between 2010 and last year were 0.36°C above the long-term average, the hottest decade since records began in 1901, the department said on Monday.
Extreme weather also claimed more than 1,500 lives last year, the seventh-hottest, it said.
They included 850 people killed by heavy rain and flooding, and another 350 in summer temperatures of up to 51°C, department data showed.
Lighting and storms claimed another 380 lives, the data showed.
India’s five warmest years on record were all in the past decade, with 2016 the hottest.
Eleven of the 15 warmest years were also during the past 15 years, the department said.
The average temperature for last year would have been higher were it not for record cold in northern India last month, it said.
Last year also saw eight cyclones form over the north Indian Ocean — just short of a record 10 last reached in 1976, including five over the Arabian Sea — but equaling the previous high of 1902, the department said.
“The impact of global warming on India is unmistakable,” department Director-General Mrityunjay Mohapatra told the Times of India. “The past year had extreme weather during all seasons.”
The UN last month said that last decade was set to be the planet’s hottest since records began.
Each of the past four decades has been hotter than the preceding one.
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