Gokul Chandrasekar | ENS Climate experts gathered at the 98th Indian Science Congress made some stark revelations on the impact of climate change in India. The numbers and instances put together paint a grim picture CENTRAL India has witnessed a 50 per cent increase in the number of extreme weather events over the last 50 years, according to observations made by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. The region, according to the study, has also witnessed a two-fold rise in very heavy rainfall events, with over 10 cm precipita tion occurring at one go. "Extreme events have been on an increase over the last 50 years in Central India and there is an increasing variability observed in the rainfall pattern in the region," said B N Goswami, director of IIT-Madras. Climate change, according to Goswami, has made the Indian monsoon less predictable over the years. "High level of errors in high frequency events would cascade to large errors in weather observation systems. Hence monsoon weather in Central India has now become twice as difficult to predict than what was 50 years ago," he said. The distribution of monsoon rainfall has also been strongly affected with changing climate, according to IITM's observations. This effect was witnessed in eastern regions of the country, which have been witnessing decreasing precipitation over the years. Scientists suspect the increase of aerosols to be the reason behind the drop. o In spite of available evi0 dence, climate experts are not able to forecast the situation of Indian monsoon 50-100 years down the line. "The cli mate projection models India has today are not good enough t to know what will happen in future. We have been deriving confusing and contradicting results with the present modr els," Goswami said.