CYCLONE FREDDY, which battered six African countries for over two weeks, in a what the UN InPanel on Climate way demonstrates Intergovernmental Change (IPCC) warns of in its Synthesis Report. The report notes "intensification of tropical cyclones and/or extratropical storms" due to global warming. This is exactly how Freddy behaved, prompting the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to say that its repeated intensification, long track and impact may have broken many records. On March 10, just after Freddy swirled in the southern Indian Ocean to make its third landfall, Sebastien Langlade, head of operations at WMO's regional centre for Réunion, called it an "exceptional phenomenon".
Freddy formed over the ocean in an area north of Australia on February 4 and moved west, making three landfalls in Africa before dissipating on March 15. Vineet Kumar Singh, research scientist at the Typhoon Research Center, Jeju National University in South Korea, calculates its lifetime to be 37 days, the most in the world on record.
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THE CIRCULARITY ARGUMENT
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Banking on flawed drug voluntary licences
The Medicines Patent Pool is pushing for more VLs, but its bad deal with Novartis on a cancer drug shows the pitfalls
Lasting solutions
For the first time, the UN has recognised the role of indigenous communities in tackling aridity. A repository of traditional knowledge India has the wherewithal to lead the way
IMD at 150
India's journey into modern weather forecasting took a decisive turn 150 years ago with the establishment of India Meteorological Department during the British rule. The agency has come a long way since then, shaping the way the country predicts and responds to its diverse climate challenges
Every drop counts
In drought-prone Marathwada region, 14 villages have managed to counter water shortage by budgeting the resource
Threat to survival
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'Migration is going to be a battlefield'
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Face of future
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Friends of the forest
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Climate-crazy playbook
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