North India depends on this coincidence to avoid 'airpocalypse'

The festive season is here, and so is the threat of air pollution again choking north India, particularly the National Capital Region (NCR). The Covid-19 pandemic has added another chilling dimension to the yearly malaise this time. While there’s hope that the coming season will be cleaner than the last few years, there are also lurking threats of another “airpocalypse” over the region in November. medium78824747First, the good news. Rice is being harvested early in Punjab and Haryana. Punjab Mandi Board data reveals that 55% more paddy had arrived in the state’s mandis till October 20 than in the corresponding period last year — 73.8 lakh metric tonnes as compared with 47.5 LMT in 2019. What this means is that farmers have a wider time window to sow the winter crop.“We are unlikely to see big peaks in stubble burning unlike the previous years. The burning of paddy residue is likely to be more evenly distributed across a longer period,” said M L Jat, principal scientist at the non-profit International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (better known by its Spanish acronym, Cimmyt). large78825154The early harvest has also meant more farm fires early in the burning season, which usually lasts from the beginning of October till the third week of November, peaking around November first week. Nasa’s VIIRS satellite detected 10,987 fires in Punjab and Haryana in the first three weeks of October (1-21) this year, nearly double the number recorded during the same period in the past two years. medium nocaption78824686 !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); That’s bad news. There’s no indication as yet that the practice of stubble burning has reduced substantially (at least in Punjab) despite the efforts of the Centre and the state governments. From the trends so far, and with just over a third of Punjab’s paddy crop having been harvested so far, farm fires are likely to increase in the coming days.A late Diwali this year (November 14) is being seen as a blessing since the festival will not coincide with what’s generally a high farm-fire period from the last week of October till November 10. But it presents a threat as well, warned some experts. medium78825280“Diwali this year falls at a dangerous time for air quality in NCR. The period from November 10 to 20 usually sees a spike in pollution, coinciding with a drop in temperatures with the onset of early winter. Diwali in mid-November, even if it is relatively clean, will only add to the pollution load. Remember, there’s also a big increase in vehicular movement leading up to the festival, “a scientist at a leading government pollution monitoring body said. Data from the past two years bears this out. Last year, when Diwali fell on October 27, Delhi experienced severe air days after the festival (October 29-November 4) as well as in mid-November. Air quality dipped to “severe” from November 12 to 15. In 2018, when Diwali was on November 7, Delhi had severe air days from November 9 to 13. Of course, it’s meteorological conditions such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed and direction that dictate whether pollutants accumulate in the air or dissipate vertically or horizontally across the atmosphere. IMD’s extended range forecast says minimum temperatures are likely to stay below normal over the next few weeks. The other factors are difficult to predict beyond a few days.Untitled Carousel 78801191