Climate Change and Health and Heat Wave Mortality in India

The paper highlights the growing concern of the impact of climate change and variability including rainfall anomaly, rising temperature in mountain areas and occurrence of heat waves in relation to human mortality pattern in India. The paper investigates the historical perspective of rainfall and malaria relationship, and cited current studies to show how climate change and variability resulted in large scale human loss in India. Based on data on rainfall pattern in the desert part of Rajasthan, the paper argued that the rainfall pattern is changing. However, the summer monsoonal rainfall of 500 mm and above may be taken as an indicator in forecasting malaria outbreak in the Thar Desert. The paper also argued that global warming has resulted in increased heat wave conditions in India and accordingly resulting in increased deaths due to heat wave conditions in different parts of India, particularly in the northwestern, south, and southeastern regions.