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When Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid makes the information, it’s normally for whether or not the authorities had granted permission for the congregational Friday prayers that week.
However the second Friday of January stood out as an exception.
After the Friday prayers on January 12, an enormous congregation held particular prayers within the mosque, searching for an finish to an prolonged interval of dry climate within the Kashmir Valley this winter.
The particular prayer, referred to as Namaz-e-Istisqa, was held two days after Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulema, a conglomerate of non secular our bodies from completely different faculties of thought in Jammu and Kashmir, appealed to the general public to wish at “particular person and collective ranges for rain and respite from the tough climate”.
In Kashmir, snowfall in winter is as anticipated because the monsoon is in mainland India. Not solely is it important to make sure the water provide within the Himalayan area, the financial system of Kashmir – the place 70% of the individuals related to agriculture and its allied sectors for livelihood – relies upon closely on a great winter.
That’s the reason the absence of snowfall in picturesque areas similar to Gulmarg and Pahalgam even in the direction of the tip of Chillai Kalan – the coldest 40-day interval of the winter starting December 21 – is extra worrisome for locals than the dejected vacationers. The shortage of snow may even imply extra prolonged energy cuts for the individuals of Jammu and Kashmir in the course of the blazing summer season since there shall be no water to energy the turbines.
Economics aside, snow is a part of Kashmir’s identification, tradition and life-style. Each winter, kids yearn for these heavy flakes of white to attempt their hand at ice sculpting. It’s an important a part of winter conversations: the discussions contain chopping paths via snow to purchase bread within the morning, damaged bones from having slipped on the ice, the lacking administration that can’t clear the streets, cancelled exams, upturned bushes and electrical energy poles.
This yr, it has been eerily dry and uninteresting. The winter is nowhere to be seen.
Although Kashmir has recorded dry winter spells earlier than, the absence of snow or rainfall this winter is accompanied by above regular day temperatures that will intensify the melting of the already shrinking glaciers, a meteorological division official in Srinagar stated.
That isn’t excellent news, given the important position glaciers have in feeding the area’s water our bodies.
Research have lengthy established that the Kolahoi glacier that feeds the Jhelum river – also referred to as the valley’s lifeline – has been receding quickly. A research printed in 2020 confirmed the glacier has misplaced 23% of its space since 1962 and has fragmented. This was due to the “rising warming that has impacted the snow accumulation on the glacier”.
However this depletion is just not restricted to Kolahoi glacier. In truth, Himalayan glaciers are the quickest shrinking on the earth. Research recommend that they might lose 75% of their ice by the finish of the century. There are roughly 18,000 glaciers in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Specialists have attributed the current dry spell in Kashmir to international warming because of which the frequency and energy of so-called western disturbances hitting the area presently of the yr has been impacted. Western disturbances are climate techniques that originate within the Mediterranean Sea and journey eastward, selecting up moisture alongside the best way and bringing rainfall to northwest India exterior the nation’s monsoon season. Kashmir’s winter local weather, between October and Might, is essentially decided by this method.
Based on a research, greater than 70% of the annual precipitation in Jammu and Kashmir comes from these moisture-laden winds. In consequence, this climate sample can be chargeable for 60% to 70% of the annual snow accumulation of glaciers within the northern area.
That’s the reason Kashmir’s total pure ecosystem is at stake.
Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, the director of the meteorological centre in Srinagar, additionally attributed the dry spell to the “sturdy El Niño climate phenomenon in central and jap Pacific Ocean”.
A pure phenomenon, aggravated by local weather change, El Niño refers back to the warming of ocean temperatures within the central and jap Pacific Ocean that impacts the energy of monsoon circulation over the Indian subcontinent.
Kashmir is just not unfamiliar to the havoc nature can unleash. Neither are its individuals unused to struggling.
That’s the reason, when Kashmiris look as much as the heavens, collectively to hunt rain and aid, it means one thing bigger is at stake.
