2020: Monsoons weakening. 2021: Monsoons strengthening. Which is it?
Google News is highlighting articles claiming new research shows global warming will cause stronger Indian and South Asian monsoons and rainfall, which will wreak climate havoc in future decades. Yet, just a few years ago climate alarmists and their media allies claimed global warming will cause weakening monsoons and weakening rainfall, which will wreak climate havoc.
The alarmists’ embarrassing self-contradiction begs the question – precisely what among the contradictory alarmist climate narratives is the “settled science”?
On Monday, India Today published an article titled, “Climate change to worsen Indian monsoon, global warming sets stage for dangerous rains: Study.”
The article claims, “The Indian monsoon is likely to get much more dangerous and wetter as global warming alters the system, new research says.”
Reporting on the same study, The Indian Express published an article today titled, “A million years of data confirms: Monsoons are likely to get worse.” The article claims, “Global warming is likely to make India’s monsoon season wetter and more dangerous, new research suggests.”
Both articles are prominently highlighted today by Google News.
Just last year, however, the Hindustan Times reported that a newly published peer-reviewed study showed that global warming will weaken monsoons and reduce monsoon rainfall.
Ominously, the Times asserted, “Monsoon rains are the main water source for agriculture in half of India with irrigation facilities being limited.”
“There is clear evidence that warming of sea surface temperatures have reduced intensity of monsoon rains in several places in India, especially the north-east, where the dip in average annual rainfall is 6-8% since the 1980s,” the Times quoted K.J. Ramesh, a former director of the India Meteorological Department.
The Hindustan Times article is merely one of many articles and studies that have claimed global warming will weaken monsoons and regional rainfall.
For example, in a 2015 article, the climate activist group India Climate Dialogue asserted researchers found in a peer-reviewed study that “the monsoon is weakening, at least since 1990, as researchers have now proved.”
According to India Climate Dialogue, the researchers “found that there was a 10-20% decrease in the mean rainfall in the Indian subcontinent. The monsoon was decreasing over central South Asia – from south of Pakistan through India to Bangladesh.”
“The decline is crucial because in these regions agriculture is still largely rain-fed. The South Asian monsoon brings sustenance to around two billion people,” India Climate Dialogue warned.
So, which is it?
Does global warming strengthen monsoons and cause more rainfall, which we are told is bad? Or does global warming weaken monsoons and cause less rainfall, which we are told is bad?
Or, just maybe – and as concluded by scientists in a recent peer-reviewed study, modest warming has little impact on monsoons, though that would be quite inconvenient for climate alarmists.
Alarmists, get you propaganda – er, stories – straight and then get back to us with your “settled science.”
See more here: climatechangedispatch.com
Header image: The Economist
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