New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- At a time when India is struggling with the glacier-triggered flash floods in upper Himalayan regions, a recent study by the IIT Gandhinagar has predicted a 7-8-fold increase in the frequency of flash droughts towards the end of this century. It has blamed the concurrent occurrence of extremely dry and hot periods during monsoon and greenhouse gas emissions to the flash droughts in-waiting.
"This would pose a major risk to crop production due to soil moisture depletion and intra-seasonal monsoon variation," said the study
"Anthropogenic warming and intraseasonal summer monsoon variability amplify the risk of future flash droughts in India", published in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.
Flash droughts are...