

RT @circleofblue : Extreme over pumping of groundwater - sinkhole in a dry riverbed in India. http://t.co/Adypv21set pic.twitter.com/o6JGupW86K

— Rob McGinnis (@Rob_McGinnis) February 3, 2015

Barely a year ago, the United Nations' top body looking at climate change predicted something that on the face of it seems contradictory. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report, India is one of the countries most at risk of severe weather events of three sorts: Massive floods and, at the same time, water shortages, plus heat-related deaths to boot. The report might have been attempting to make a forecast for the coming century, but its predictions have almost literally come true in Andhra Pradesh, currently facing the same rains that have left Chennai underwater."Sir, Andhra Pradesh is in a peculiar situation as three districts have been severely affected by heavy rains and other districts are suffering from drought," Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament CM Ramesh said on the floor of the upper house, on Wednesday. "Sir, 359 mandals in nine districts have been declared as drought-affected during the Kharif season, after carefully examining the reports submitted by the Collectors. [But] Nellore, Chittoor and my own district Kadapa are affected with very heavy rains lashed out at Andhra Pradesh causing extensive damage to life and property."The bifurcated Andhra Pradesh has a total of 14 districts. According to Ramesh, nine of these have been declared as drought-affected . Three have now just been lashed by severe rains. And those numbers include some overlap. The district of Nellore for example, will be in the curious situation of drawing relief funds for both drought- and rain-affected districts.And that's not the only unusual thing happening of late in Andhra."In some parts of South Asia, such as the east coast of India, clusters of districts with poor infrastructure and rapid population growth are also the regions of maximum climate vulnerability," reads the Climate & Development Knowledge Network's summary of the IPCC's Fifth Report . "Extreme events are expected to be more catastrophic for the people living in such districts."Both severe droughts and unprecedented flooding count among these extreme events, which the IPCC's reports and recent evidence make it clear are only going to increase in frequency for India over the coming decades. Curiously, in Andhra Pradesh they happen to be occurring at the same time.

But even that part is not unexpected. What is likely to change, according to the experts, in the way weather works over India, is its predictability. Where once the monsoon was reasonably reliable and came around the same time every year, rainfall over India is going to be much more erratic.The IPCC even spells this out : "Rainfall patterns in peninsular India will become more and more erratic, with a possible decrease in overall rainfall, but an increase in extreme weather events."The Indian Meteorological Department on Wednesday expressed concern about the variability of rains and extreme weather. Nine states this year have declared droughts, but crops earlier in the year were also affected by unseasonal rainfall and floods affected not only Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, but also caused deaths in many other parts of the country."There is an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events and there is a reduction in the number of rainy days," said LS Rathore, director of IMD. "Variability of rainfall in terms of quantity, wet spells and durations is increasing, which means uncertainly is also increasing. This is a challenge for operational forecast and more research is required."