Climate change

The ongoing international conference COP (Conference of the Parties) 27 in Egypt on climate change prompted me to wonder: does climate change remain stationary over millennia, or does it undergo changes due to natural causes? Of course, in the age of "Homocene,” dominated by homo sapiens, anthropogenic actions have accelerated this change. I am no physicist or meteorologist, but as a naturalist my curiosity is aroused as to the stability of the climate.
I feel that our holy books like the Avesta could throw some light on the issue of changing climatic patterns. I remember having read in the translation of one of our prayers that we pray for the regularity of the seasons. Does this mean that the climate was fluctuating even in earlier times? Scholars of Zoroastrianism could enlighten us on this topic. A scholar whom I had consulted informed me that earlier Iran was so cold that a dead body could be preserved for days without refrigeration. Historian B. D. Tilak was of the opinion that the setting in of the last Ice Age led to mass migration of people from the freezing North Arctic region to the south. One group went to Europe, another (of our ancestors) to Iran and yet another to India. This may explain certain similarities in the Indo European languages and probably in certain religious features like jashan and yagna or gatha and grantha.
Climate, even without considering the aspect of it changing, is strange. Agumba, on the edge of the Western Ghats in Karnataka, facing the brunt of the south west monsoon receives a record 8,000 mm (315 inches) of rainfall a year and is considered the Cherapunji of southern India, but this huge amount is received in only four months from June to September. Southern Kerala on the other hand records 2,000-3,000 mm (78 to 118 inches) on average, but over a period of six months, as it is the recipient of the south west monsoon as well as the depressions and cyclones from October to December.
There is some compensation between the amount and distribution of the rains. Vegetation is an index of this compensation, as both the regions are clothed with an evergreen forest. Yet another example of this kind is the Sanjay Gandhi National Park with an average of 2,000 mm (78.74 inches) of rain over four months and Bangalore’s Bannerghata forest with half that amount spread over six months. The vegetation which integrates the two factors of amount and distribution results in a deciduous forest in both these places.
Dr V. M. MEHER HOMJI
vispimeherhomji@gmail.com