Surface temperature tops 60°C in India?
Surface temperature tops 60°C in parts of north India, satellite images show
New Delhi: Surface land temperatures exceeded 60 degrees Celsius over some parts of northwest India, according to imagery captured by satellites on Saturday. Images of land surface captured by INSAT 3D, Copernicus Sentinel 3 and a NASA satellite indicated that land surface temperature over pockets of northwest India raised concerns among several scientists about the severe impacts of the ongoing heatwave.
Also Read | NW, central India get hottest April in 122 yrs
“Land surface temperatures from different satellite sensors. One common observation i.e was able to obtain an accurate measurement of #LST of the ground, which exceeded 60°C in several areas today,” tweeted Ashim Mitra, scientist at India Meteorological Department (IMD) who specialises in satellites. “The current extreme #heatwave in #Pakistan and #India as seen today, on the fourth intense hot day, by #Copernicus #Sentinel3 LST (Land Surface Temperature, not Air!). LST collected on April 29 shows max value exceeding 62°C/143°F. Gaps due to cloud/snow/nodata. #ClimateEmergency,” tweeted ADAM Platform, an advanced geospatial data management platform.
M Mohapatra, director general of IMD, said this data shouldn’t be trusted before conducting ground verification. “Satellite observations are taken from 36,000km away from the surface. They can be misleading if not verified. The record highest land temperature was taken in Rajasthan which was 52.6 degree C. This data can create fear and panic so we should act responsibly.”
“Do you know what 60 degrees C means? The roads and other infrastructure will melt. I have seen roads melting in Rajasthan at 50 degree C. We should be very careful and run ground assessments first,” added another scientist, who declined to be named.
The European Space Agency’s website also showed land surface temperatures to be nearing 55 degrees Celsius over many parts of northwest India and crossing 60 degrees Celsius over several pockets. “This image, produced using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission, shows the land surface temperature across most of the nation. Owing to the absence of cloud cover on 29 April (10:30 local time), the Sentinel-3 mission was able to obtain an accurate measurement of the land surface temperature of the ground, which exceeded 60°C in several areas. The data shows that surface temperature in Jaipur and Ahmedabad reached 47°C, while the hottest temperatures recorded are southeast and southwest of Ahmedabad (visible in deep red) with maximum land surface temperatures of around 65°C,” ESA said on its website.
“We noticed these land surface temperatures last evening. They are extremely high. Some of the highest land temperatures were recorded over Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. Anticyclonic winds are bringing very hot air to the land, rainfall has been subdued so land is dry and there is direct sunshine,” explained Mitra. He added that the normal surface temperatures expected during this season are between 45 and 55 degrees Celsius.
“This data is unprecedented. We want to verify with our team and then comment on it,” said Pushpendra Johari, Senior VP – Sustainability, RMSI Pvt. Ltd, a global disaster risk management company.
Experts have suggested that unusually high temperatures this March and April are linked to the climate crisis. “It is premature to attribute the extreme heat in India and Pakistan solely to climate change. However, it is consistent with what we expect in a changing climate. Heatwaves are more frequent and more intense and starting earlier than in the past. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its Sixth Assessment Report, said that heatwaves and humid heat stress will be more intense and frequent in South Asia this century,” the World Meteorological Organisation said in a statement.
Experts also warned that the health and death toll from the ongoing heatwave spell should be documented.
For what it is worth this is the forecast for Banda,Uttar Pradesh that was mentioned as having the high temperatures above
And these are the average temperatures according to Wikipedia
6 thoughts on “Surface temperature tops 60°C in India?”
India and Iran for the last several years have been recording phenomenal temperatures during the hot season. Recalling the time British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, were having wildfires everywhere, perhaps it was 2017, and a city of about 80,000 in northern Alberta evacuated all its citizens.
I think in that same year, somewhere in India, 51 degrees Celsius was reported. The news article mentioning the figure was accompanied by a B & W photo of one sandal stuck in soft asphalt. I could understand the owner, after a risky crossing of the road, not wanting to wade back in with one foot bare to retrieve it.
It could have also been in that same year NASA announced that our earth would eventually become too hot for human existence. I wonder if Elon Musk would agree with NASA.
The last of his concerns I read about was on the state of our demographics —- the disproportionately smaller number of young people needing to support the growing population of the elderly. Japan was worrying about this in the 1980s. I see this trend as being similar to the heating up of our planet.
In the graphic above on temperatures in India, on 30th April this year the lowest shown was 43.5 degrees C in Delhi, with the highest at 47.2 in Banda.
As a comparison, on 27 June 2021 an all-time high was recorded for Canada at Lytton. British Columbia, with the mercury at 46.6 degrees C, breaking the previous record of 45.0 on 5 July 1937 at Yellow Grass and Midale, in the prairie farming province of Saskatchewan.
Besides the temperature on the thermometer, Canada also uses the ‘humidex.’ Depending on the level of humidity as an added factor, a temperature of 45 could actually feel like 50 degrees Celsius.
Most people outside of Canada would not think it could get as hot here as India, especially when they hear that in winter some places, such as northern BC, may drop to minus 40 degrees C, though that usually includes the ‘windchill’ factor.
To be honest, the long discussion in the article above on super-high temperatures in India is begging for really serious reflection and rapid planning for drastic measures.
My friend Sol, with whom I share many interests, some years back came up with the phrase ‘The Age of Emergency’ to sum up the nature of our times, so we would not forget what we are facing now and in the immediate years ahead.
We know India’s population is on the way to surpassing China’s. With earth continuing to become ever hotter, the only place of escape is underground (or Antarctica after the ice melts), so India will have to get moving on boring into mountain sides. Underground reservoirs could hold water, similar to storage for oil in the US, and in Japan also.
I’m not an engineer, but Elon Musk is. Am sure his visionary mind can come up with solutions (though his plans are mostly for Mars). Solar energy for growing food under lighting in dark caves, and so on,
This is a complex, complicated task when time is so limited. The writing was on the wall long ago !!!
There’s much that makes me doubt Musk’s Mars project can be realized, given mankind’s penchant for self-undoing !!!
I am not sure about Elon Musk having solutions. He wants to connect us up to a mainframe.
By strange chance, just scrolled past an open tab that had your comment showing. (Btw, often wondered if there’s a quick way on the site to know of responses to one’s own comments ?!?)
There’s a lot going on with Musk; most people wouldn’t be able to keep up. I just simply ignored him from the beginning, so now there’s too much to cover.
As for the mainframe, in one way or another mass hookups could happen eventually (in a manner that escapes resistance). This may work easier on Mars if ever a colony is established, but here things will be in too much of a mess (from long-standing developments) for straightening out —- only possible if true peace takes hold and the entire world cooperates at speed.
My sense of where it’s at —- for one thing, overheating of the planet is already too far gone for reversal by concerted efforts.
Likely I won’t be around that much longer, and have no plans (nor see any reason) for returning (same for friend Sol).
Great Gratitude to the Cosmos for the chance to be here over the eons.
Musk has the ability to come up with ‘solutions’ other than SpaceX. As blueprints maybe, yet high likelihood an unprecedented collapse is part of The Great Reset now taking place (under the radar), which when it surfaces into the familiar reality of the major portion of humanity, will be sweeping aside Musk & Co and most of all else.
For the longest time, my friend Sol has felt, as a result of his special dreams, that ‘food & war’ are the threatening issues that should be the focus of our attention.. Of course, I concur with his concerns.
Reading between the lines on the matter of food, we see the shadow of climate change looming over the other factors (energy crises, container ship backups, trucker union squabbles, spiralling inflationary prices, worker shortages, and so on).