In Kashmir, bellwether of India’s changing climate, heatwaves, receding glaciers, drying rivers, power cuts & falling harvests
Kashmir's cherished houseboats were stranded, rivers ran at historic lows, apple harvests were hit, and power cuts rose during an unusual but recently familiar heatwave—temperatures soared up to 10 deg C above normal—during the hottest September the world has ever recorded. Environmental damage, unregulated construction and government policies have exacerbated the effects of global warming and hit livelihoods in a region that reflects and affects subcontinental weather.
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Kashmir’s climate patterns are a bellwether for India, said experts, because its weather is influenced greatly by two primary climatic systems controlling subcontinental weather, and the health of the region’s glaciers, rivers and precipitation provide a forewarning to the rest of the peninsula.
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The consequences of declining water levels in the Jhelum have meant a severe water supply shortage, especially in Srinagar and swathes of north Kashmir, where the decrease in the river’s water levels has led to a drinking water crisis.
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Javed Yousuf Dar, chief engineer of the Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited (KPDCL), acknowledged that reduced water levels in the Jhelum and Chenab rivers and other water bodies had led to power cuts, which were likely to increase as winter neared.
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