Research reveals Europe's pollution caused drought in India

According to a new research, the reason behind India’s drought in 2000 is pollution in Europe. This drought affected above 13 crore people in India. 

The researchers of the Imperial College of London examined the effect of emissions of sulphur dioxide in rainfall in India in the year 2000. Coal-fired power plants produce sulphur dioxide that has a number of side effects, such as heart and lung diseases, acid rain, and impacting the growth of plants. However, sulphur aerosols cool down atmosphere by reflecting sunlight back to space.

But, if the emissions are from northern hemisphere than it changes the south hemisphere’s relative rate of heating which causes a shift to tropical rain bank. This may have devastating results on the environment which were evident in India. 

The emissions mainly in the industrial areas of northern hemisphere led to around 10 percent out of 40 percent overall drop of rain in the north-west and south-west region of India. 

According to a member of the research team, Apostolos Voulgarakis of the Grantham Institute of ICL stated that this study shows emission in one part has a significant impact on the atmosphere of another part of the globe irrespective of whether the pollution directly reaches the other part. Though East Asia’s emission has a bigger impact on India but Europe and the US also have its considerable impact.  

Though between 1990 and 2011, the emission of sulphur dioxide has dropped in European by about 74 percent yet drought condition in India is critical due to global warming. 
 

• Drought
• Drought in India
• Pollution