Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
Except the fleeting spell of a cool, dry winter, Bangladesh is a summer and monsoon-dominant country. Its climate is sub-tropical, with the average temperature at 26 degrees Celsius. But it ranges between 15 degrees and 34 degrees Celsius throughout the year. Unexpectedly, this mid-April the temperature throughout the country including Dhaka ranged between 30+ and 40+ degrees Celsius. The explanation to this abnormal rise in summer temperature rests with the weathermen and climate experts. People look to them for a convincing answer to the riddle of this summer's weird behaviour.
This rise and fall in summer temperature notwithstanding, the people of Bangladesh have been used to high temperature this season since long. A scorching sun, little or no rain and hot air, punctuated by nor'wester, defines the season. The May-July summer is integral to the country's seasonal cycle. In the earlier times, the vast rural areas used to bear the brunt of this hot season. It was because the summer sun and its heat directly affected the village people living in thatched huts and tin-sheds. Moreover, the sun-baked breeze would keep blowing across the parched crop fields towards the human habitats. Many villages in the 'Char' areas are devoid of big, shade trees. In the open with the sun burning, localised sand storms add to the poor's woes. With all sources of water dried up, the ordeals of the general village people keep mounting. At times, the sufferings reached an unbearable level.
The summer heat assaults the cities and towns in its unique way. The frenzied urbanisation, with little space for air passage, continues to reach its extremes. Winter has veritably said farewell to Dhaka. The unbridled rise in population, ill planned urbanisation and air thick with noxious pollutants makes way for conditions where heat is trapped. It results in making the summer bite continuously tormenting. Of late, it's being said that there's a basic difference between summer in the villages and that in the large cities. The dungeon-like metropolitan areas cannot release their summer heat sufficiently, resulting in the heat being trapped in the urban atmosphere. People living and working in air-conditioned buildings are not expected to realise this scourge when inside. But they have to come out into the open on scores of assignments. It's when they can feel the bite of summer, like the people who cannot afford to run air-conditioners.
The working class, footpath business people, rickshaw-pullers, day labourers, bus passengers; and others moving in the open are the worst sufferers. They, and their counterparts in the rural areas, have been equally hit by the ongoing heat wave. Also termed a country with temperate climate, Bangladesh is no stranger to heat waves. But the latest one appears to have hit the country with all its ferocity. If this seasonal trend continues, many atmospheric and ecological changes may follow, especially in the rural areas.
Heat waves hit the country several times before. The green covers, rivers and sprawling water bodies played a great role in mitigating the immediate impact of those weird behaviours of nature. With large-scale deforestation, drying up of water sources and some other factors are feared to invite more heat waves in the future. Besides, Bangladesh has been declared already in the path of global climate change impacts. Global warming is dominant of them. Besides, heat trapping caused by greenhouse gas emission, ozone depletion etc continues to warm the planet Earth. The most alarming aspect of global warming is glacial melting that leads to scores of climate hazards including natural catastrophes such as typhoons, excessive rain and prolonged dry climate. Both El Nino and La Nina play a critical part in these occurrences.
Heat wave has started affecting the earth since long. It has mostly played havoc with a few African regions. Of late, in a display of nature's behavioural changes, a few countries in western and southern Europe have shown signs of the assault of heat waves. Climatologists have singled out France, Spain and a few other countries. Commenting on the 2023 changes in weather pattern in the continent, an expert says, "Europe's 2023 heat wave caused temperature to rise up to 20 degrees Celsius above average. This is exactly the kind of very abnormal event that is progressively rewriting global climatology." In true sense, Bangladesh is not a heat wave-prone country. Only in its recent history, the country has passed through a few heat waves.
This year's punishing heat at the very onset of summer is interpreted by meteorologists as a forewarning of future heat waves. It makes many feel worried. If the heat waves start emerging as a regular phenomenon, all sectors of life and living might be found to be in jeopardy. The sector feared to be most hit by heat waves would be agriculture. In place of lush green fields, the farmers will discover barren tracts of croplands filled with wilted plants and dried up paddy rice. Even the diehard optimists cringe away from these grim spectacles.
The summertime day and night temperature is quite tolerable to the people of Bangladesh. In a way, except during winter this temperature is quite normal to people living in villages and cities. In the rural areas, thanks to the relative open space, plantations and tree clusters summer remains a season accompanying normal temperature, albeit a little higher. In years, the country's rainy season monsoon, too, appears with an almost similar heat. Apart from a little higher day temperature during the whole season, the summer days remain filled with bright sunlight. The ashy-blue sky at times gets filled with cloud fragments. The heat-struck habitats look to them wistfully for spells of shower. The clouds prove deceptive. Thundershowers break loose on villages by accompanying nor'wester. The storms relieve people of the suffocation caused by summer heat.
In some years, rainfall in excess leads to the early start of the tropical monsoon in the country. Normally, summer is followed by the rainy season. The Bangladesh summer has for ages shaped the nature and temperament of the land's inhabitants. Their distinctive identity as a nation has a lot to do with the season of summer. There is a striking feature. Unlike the piercing seasonal heat that overruns the other Asian regions, the one visiting Bangladesh every year is relatively mellow and complements the temperament of the land's inhabitants. The heat waves ought to be considered a deviant manifestation of nature.