Met Office warns of untimely rains in future

Islamabad

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has warned of ill-timed rains in the country in future due to climate change, saying they will threaten crops.

“The future projections indicate that there will be no significant change in rainfall amount due to climate change but its temporal and spatial distribution will be highly influenced due to climate change. It means that untimely rains may threaten the crop production in future increasing losses at maturity stage,” a PMD official told ‘The News’ referring to a recent research.

The weatherman said the temperatures were likely to increase at the rate 0.4c per decade in agricultural plains of Punjab and Sindh and thus ultimately increasing water requirement of crops.

He added that the hot weather conditions could retard the crops’ growth and development.

The official said the research showed that high temperatures coupled with abnormally wet summer climatic conditions in cotton zone could help pathogens grow to hamper good crop yields.

“The scientists say in the absence of adaptation measures, the anticipated losses and uncertainty in crop production will be magnified many times over the prevailing scenarios,” he said.

The weatherman said the PMD research indicated that temperatures in agricultural plains had risen over the last 60 years and the increase in the recent two decades was higher than the previous.

He also said the rate of increase of night temperatures was greater that the increase noticed in daytime temperatures.

The official said experts identified that increase in the minimum temperature was responsible for the decline in rice yield as it reversed the grain production process.

He added that the untimely rains have significantly impacted the crop production especially rains at the time of harvesting and threshing caused pre-and post harvest losses.

“Abnormally wet weather conditions at critical stages of crop growth and development promoted the growth of insects and pest which reduced the quantity and quality of yield,” he said.