Global warming cuts grain production in India by 6%

Grain harvest in India stagnates as rising temperatures and inadequate rainfall continue to threaten the world's second most populous country, according to a weather scientist.

Average temperatures in the past decade have increased by 0.25 degree Celsius when the monsoon crops, which constitute half of India's grain output, are sown in June and by 0.6 degree Celsius when winter crops are planted in October, said Krishna Kumar, a senior scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is counting on bigger crops to tame inflation from a 17-month high. India's economy slowed in December after a drought last year ravaged crops and pushed global sugar prices to a 29-year high.

''Warmer nights affect rice output while day temperatures hurt wheat production,'' Mr Kumar said in an interview last Friday (Apr 16). ''Night temperatures are increasing more rapidly than day temperatures since the late 1980s due to rising human greenhouse-gas emissions,'' he said.

The combined global land and sea-surface temperatures last month was 0.77 degree more than the 20th-century average of 12.7 degrees Celsius, making March the warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. March was also the hottest on record in India as per India Meteorological Department (IMD).