Israel-Iran War Could Disrupt Monsoon, Carry Radiation to India

Hyderabad: The Israel-Iran conflict in the Middle-East may be far off in terms of physical distance – nearly 2,800 km as a passenger aircraft flies – but if it escalates into a full-fledged war, and Iran’s nuclear facilities are destroyed resulting in radiation leakage, or there is a release of vast quantities of dust, this distance may not mean much as there could be a very real possibility that the life-giving monsoon winds that bring rain to India could well carry radiation from the war zone.

Typically, the monsoon winds blow at speeds ranging between 22 and 43 kilometres per hour, sometimes reaching 90 kmph if a low-level ‘jet stream’ comes into play. Once they hit land, the wind starts slowing down.

According to scientists, whether or not there will be such an eventuality will depend on how the conflict goes.

Asked about a potential scenario if the war intensifies, Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, climatologist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, explained: “Since the atmospheric circulation in the Middle East and India are connected, the monsoon circulation can pull in radioactive particles into the subcontinent.”

He said that a situation of release of nuclear contaminants into the atmosphere could be “highly unlikely”; but if it occurred, it could result in the aerosols reaching the upper troposphere. This would result in cooling of the land at a time heating is essential for driving the circulation of monsoon winds.

There were serious concerns over radiation escaping after Israel struck the city of Natanz, Iran’s major nuclear hub, as well as another facility in Isfahan in Iran. Israel’s attacks on these nuclear installations have led to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi, warning that military escalation “increases the chance of a radiological release.” For now, the radiation levels at these two sites appear to be normal, as per IAEA.

“If the war does go on to generate an emission/temperature situation similar to that observed following big volcanic eruptions in the tropics, especially the northern hemisphere, the southwest monsoon rainfall could reduce,” said Dr Akshay Deoras, research scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science & Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK.

If the situation does indeed become worse, the impact “can even linger for another year if the emissions/perturbed temperatures due to the war are able to modulate big weather patterns such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation,” he said.

He explained that dust and aerosols and temperatures were important to the monsoon. If a scenario arose in which temperatures come down by a large magnitude over the Middle East and Asia (including the Tibetan Plateau), then the monsoon circulation might weaken.

This is because the land-sea temperature contrast will weaken in that case. The aerosol impact will be determined by what type of aerosols are emitted. Regarding dust, if there is a lot of dust over the Middle East or Iran, there might be an increased chance of it entering India during monsoon breaks, he said.