Make every school in Kerala a weather station: Award-winning climate scientist

In 2023, 153 people in Kerala lost their lives to dengue fever, accounting for 32 per cent of all dengue fatalities in India. Bihar, the state with the second-highest number of dengue deaths, reported only 74, less than half of Kerala's toll.
A year before, climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll, who was working on a model to predict dengue outbreak, wrote to Kerala's Nodal Officer on Climate Change and Human Health seeking data to work on the project. His team at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) had made a similar model for Pune. "This will be of immense benefit to the Kerala Health Department since it will help in close monitoring and also taking precautions to prevent disease incidences both on short term and long term," Dr Koll, the climate scientist with Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) wrote to the nodal officer.

All he got was the official email IDs of the Director of Health Services and the Additional Director of Public Health. Despite reminder emails and texts, no data was provided.

The same applied to rain-related data. "Many lives could have been saved if there is proper observation, proper forecast, proper warning and a proper policy," said Dr Koll, who won this year’s Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for Earth Scientist, the country’s highest science honour. He was speaking on 'Climate: Hanging in the Balance' at the Manorama Conclave in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.

The Western Ghat and the Arabian Sea, flanking Kerala, have become like the devil and sea because of climate change, said Dr Koll. "Not only is the climate changing, but the pace of change is quite fast," he said. Building a climate-equipped Kerala was the only way out, he said. "We should focus at the panchayat level. The roads, schools, houses, other establishments, and farmland should be climate-equipped," he said.

To begin with, Kerala should build a dense and efficient climate monitoring network, he said. On July 30, the day of the Wayanad landslides, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) put out two different rainfall measurement maps. According to the KSDMA map, Wayanad had very heavy rainfall (more than 115mm) and heavy rainfall on July 30; but the IMD put out four different readings for Wayanad: very heavy, heavy, moderate and very light rain.

According to the IMD map, Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam mostly had light or very light rainfall, but KSDMA said the two districts had moderate rainfall. "In this age, we cannot tolerate it. We should have a dense climate monitoring network across Kerala to understand and forecast the weather perfectly," Dr Koll said. "And that data should be in the public domain," he said.

Kerala has schools every 3km. These schools can be climate-equipped. "Every school can have a rain gauge and thermometers to measure air temperature. In 2018, a school monitoring rain and water levels at Meenachil River, saved 60 families downstream by predicting floods, he said.

Similarly, schools may run on solar power and also have rain-harvesting tanks. "That way, students will be not only climate aware but also climate equipped," he said. And their data will be part of the monitoring network.

But in predicting flash floods and landslides, there should be coordination and collaboration among various departments such as geology and hydrology to come up with a model. "We can do that," he said.

Losing 17m of land every decade
The sea level has been rising 3mm every year since 1980, which translated to 3cm every decade, said Dr Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. It may appear minuscule but 17 metres of land would be eroded if the slope is just 0.1 degrees, he said. "And that old story. By 2050, sea level would be rising at 5mm every year," he said.

Similarly, cyclones have increased by 50 per cent and their durations by 80 per cent since 1980, he said. Extreme rainfall has increased threefold during the period. By 2050, with a one degree Celsius increase in temperature, rainfall would increase by 10 per cent , he said.

Change in land use compounds impact
A study on Thiruvananthapuram's urban heat island (UHI) -- a term used to describe an urban area is warmer than rural areas -- said the temperature in built-up areas or concrete jungles increased to 30.82 degrees Celsius in 2022 from 25.92 degrees Celsius in 1988, a jump of nearly 5 degrees in 34 years.

The study presented by Dr Koll said that in open areas, the temperature increased to 26.8 degrees Celsius in 2022 from 25.92 degrees Celsius in 1988. In vegetated areas, the temperature increased to 30.82 degrees Celsius in 2022 from 26.61 degrees Celsius, a jump of 4.21 degrees.

The temperature over water bodies was recorded at 25.21 degrees Celsius, which is a slight dip from 25.66 degrees recorded in 2012; in 1988, the temperature was 24.33 degrees Celsius.

The high and low temperatures in the capital city's urban heat island have also been steadily increasing during the period, said Dr Koll. "This change in land use will also make the land weaker and prone to landslides and flash floods," he said.

Dr Koll said fighting climate change is a two-pronged strategy: mitigation and adaptation. "Mitigation is beyond our hands now. It has to be done at the global level. Kerala should focus on adaptation. KSDMA had identified the hotspots. Climate-equip every panchayat," he said.