‘Too much water, too little water’: Rising mercury could turn land barren

Chief meteorologist says rainfall, melting glaciers, tropical cyclones could be deadly.

KARACHI: Pakistan's most cultivable land could turn barren due to rising mercury in the region.

The meteorological department's chief meteorologist, Dr Ghulam Rasool, said this while addressing a press briefing regarding climate change in Pakistan on Saturday.

He asserted that the changing rainfall patterns, rapid melting of glaciers and increasingly common tropical cyclones could be deadly for the country, adding that the sea level was also rising swiftly because of the surging temperature.

"Over the last century, an increase of 0.76 degrees Celsius was observed but in the last 14 years alone, an increase of 1.1 degrees Celsius has been recorded," he said. "When the temperature increases, the glaciers melt, adding to the monsoon water and leading to a rise in sea level."

Rasool said that July and August remained dry in 2014 but when it rained in September, it rained so heavily that three days made up for the two earlier dry months.

Talking about advancing glaciers, Rasool maintained that only 23 of Pakistan's 8,123 were advancing. "How could the country's glaciers advance if the ice mass is increasing on only 23 glaciers?" he asked. "The rest of the glaciers are melting speedily."

According to him, Pakistan's problem has always been "too much water and too little water." The increased rainwater in Punjab and the water from the glaciers flow down to Sindh, he added. "The water level is already on the rise in Sindh and the land takes longer to dry, due to which farmers are unable to irrigate their crops, especially in August and September," he explained. "At the same time, there is drought in Tharparkar and Balochistan."

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2015.