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Howdy !
It's me Scarlett !
This week we will talk about the ' Innovation, Leadership and Environment '.
Do not be obsessed with all the articles too much. Just pick some articles what you have interests and prepare your opinions related to those articles. :)
◈ Movie clip
-------- Top 5 barriers to innovation
-------- How great leaders inspire action
-------- Korea severely hit by heavy rain, experts suggest impact of climate change and La Nina phenomenon
-------- What is a monsoon?
-------- The Science of Monsoon
◈ Social Innovation
-------- 7 Barriers to Internal Innovation
-------- 10 Barriers to Employee Innovation
-------- How great leaders inspire action
◈ Impact of Climate Change and Pollution on Monsoon climate
-------- Changing Monsoons and Climate: What’s the Rain Forecast?
-------- Pollution in India Could Reshape Monsoons
-------- The Science of Monsoons
-------- Monsoon Climate
-------- 5 ways you can personally fight the climate crisis
Hope you enjoy the topics.
With luv
Scarlett
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Top 5 barriers to innovation
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How great leaders inspire action
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https://youtu.be/5PR1zZ6zChk
Although we are used to experiencing the monsoon season every year,... some experts suggest climate change has modified the patterns of rain, making it more difficult to predict.
On top of that, the weather phenomenon known as La Nina is expected to arrive soon, bringing more rain to Asia.
Here's Lee Ji-won with our News feature tonight.
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"A seasonal monsoon has wet most part of the nation for the past few days,... with several parts of the peninsula already seeing downpours,... and heavy rain alerts have been issued across most of the nation.
In Seoul, it's been raining so much that the water level here at the Jamsu Bridge has topped over 6-point-2 meters, or more than three times the normal level, enough to shut it down."
The low-level bridge stands at 2-meters above the river, but with the recent heavy rainfall... parts of the bridge and the Banpo Hangang Park have been flooded, forcing authorities to restrict the area due to safety concerns.
The monsoon season, or "jangma" in Korean, kicked off last week with precipitation hitting the southern regions of the country, and expanding to the upper regions including Seoul by Monday. Daejeon, located in the center of Korea, has already received more than 268-millimeters of precipitation.
Monsoon rain normally arrived in late June and ended around the first weeks of August. But in recent years, the rainy season has become unpredictable.
"In the past, precipitation could be somewhat predicted. But not anymore. Even after the monsoon season ends, heavy showers dominate the forecast,... and severe rain storms have become much more frequent with sporadic, localized downpours. And numerous climate experts say this as a result of climate change."
The expert says as climate change increases the average temperature, the amount of evaporation from land and different bodies of water increases, leading to faster condensation and eventually, more frequent precipitation.
And this year, the rainfall is expected to be even more severe due to La Nina weather phenomenon.
La Nina occurs when strong trade winds cause warm sea water to move to the west Pacific Ocean, lowering the temperature in the east Pacific.
La Nina then causes draught in South America, while it brings severe rain to Asia.
"When La Nina phenomenon is triggered, one effect on Korea is that there is less precipitation in the beginning of the summer but more towards the end. This year, the average amount of precipitation in July is expected to be less than average,... whereas precipitation in August and September is expected to be similar or more than the amount in average years.
With the monsoon pattern becoming more random and difficult to predict, experts call for measures to minimize the damage and impact of these abnormal weather conditions.
"As the monsoon patterns change, weather forecasting becomes more difficult, which means there is less time to prepare against severe weather conditions. Thus we need to come up with different safety standards, especially when building structures."
With the severe rain already taking a toll across the country, expert warns that both short and long-term preparations are needed, while the range of safety regulations against heavy downpours during the monsoon season needs to be widened. Lee Ji-won, Arirang News.
Visit ‘Arirang News’ Official Pages
Facebook(NEWS): http://www.facebook.com/newsarirang
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What is a monsoon?
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The Science of Monsoon
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Top 5 barriers to innovation
By Tom Merritt in Innovation / on May 14, 2019, 1:52 PM PST
Security concerns, limited time, and no budget are some factors that can stop companies from innovating. Tom Merritt examines the top five roadblocks to innovation and how to overcome them.
Innovation is essential to so many things for a business, including success and longevity. Being innovative isn't easy, or everyone would do it. Half the battle is knowing what's in your way. So let's look at five barriers to innovation, so you can clear them away.
1. Security concerns:
New things are scary because they often bring new vulnerabilities. But security is not unsolvable—it's just another essential element to get right.
2. Limited time and resources:
No company ever feels like it has enough time or people to do a job, so don't let that be your excuse. You'll need to carve out time for innovation—it won't just happen on its own.
3. Limited or no budget:
Money can be a harder one to get over since the people holding the purse strings tend to want a safe bet, and innovative ideas are, by definition, unproven.
4. Lack of skill sets:
It's much easier to innovate if you have people who know how to do new things rather than constantly remixing old ways.
5. User acceptance/adoption:
Even if you bust through all the other barriers, you still need to convince your customers to take advantage of the new thing. The innovation case doesn't stop at launch.
Now that you know what you need to overcome these barriers, it can be easier to account for them and make a plan to innovate.
Article source : https://www.techrepublic.com/article/top-5-barriers-to-innovation/
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7 Barriers to Internal Innovation
By Kaihan Krippendorff , Founder, Outthinker / April, 2018
In my last article, I laid out research that shows that employees, more so than entrepreneurs, are behind the innovations that have most impacted society. The idea that entrepreneurs are revolutionaries while employees in established firms work out the details, that entrepreneurs innovate and employees execute, that small firms freed from the burden of established business models and dogma disrupt while established firms implement is not supported by history.
However, that is not to say that innovating as an employee inside an established firm comes without challenges. Too many promising innovation attempts from within established firms fail. By many counts, over 90% of attempted internal innovations fail.
Why do so many attempts at internal innovation fail?
What is the difference between those that succeed?
To answer these questions, I started interviewing internal innovators. After three years, I had conducted over 150 interviews, each time asking, “In your experience, what are the biggest barriers to driving an innovation from within?” To go deeper, I interviewed innovation experts such Bharat Anand (Harvard), Steve Blank, George Day (Wharton), John Hagel (Deloitte’s Center for the Edge and Singularity University), Gary Hamel (London Business School), Roger Martin (Rotman School of Management), and Rita McGrath (Columbia) to capture their points of view.
I collated and grouped all of their answers. This exercise surfaced seven barriers to innovation I found repeatedly mentioned as the most common challenges:
1. Intent:
Many would-be internal innovators have simply given up trying; they have abandoned the intent to find and pursue new innovations.
2. Need:
Most employees do not understand what kinds of innovations their organizations need (e.g., less than 55% of middle managers can name even two of their company’s top strategic priorities), so for ideas, they look in the wrong places and then propose ideas of little strategic value.
3. Options:
Would-be internal innovators often grow frustrated because they become fixated too early on a few, or even worse just one, innovative idea, instead of continually generating a flow of new ideas and managing them like a portfolio of options.
4. Value blockers:
It is commonly accepted that innovative ideas are inconsistent with, and therefore disruptive to, a company’s current business model. This established model creates erect value blockers that prevent an appropriate new business model from forming around the new idea.
5. Act:
Established organizations tend to ask one to prove an idea will work before giving permission to take action. Yet most new ideas are better suited to the opposite approach: taking action in order to prove the idea. This puts would-be internal innovators in a catch-22: they cannot prove their idea will work so they cannot take action.
6. Team:
Scaling new ideas often requires one to pull together a cross-silo team that runs at a rapid pace and is geared toward learning rather than delivering results. Corporations are geared for the opposite: they are siloed, act slowly, and value results (over learning).
7. Environment:
Getting support for new ideas is politically complicated because the leadership behavior, types of talent, organizational structures, and cultural norms that help established organizations sustain their core operations also tend to hinder internal innovativeness. Would-be internal innovators struggle to find “islands of freedom” from which they can access the talent, structures, cultural norms, and leadership support that support attempts at innovation.
I’ve ordered these barriers into a sequence that outlines a path of innovation. The names of the barriers form an acronym (IN-OVATE) that hopefully will make them easy to remember. By recognizing where you are on the IN-OVATE path, predicting which barrier you likely to face next, and pulling out the appropriate tool, you will be able to more skillfully guide your idea from conception to realization. By recognizing where your organization blocks the path of internal innovation along this IN-OVATE path, you will be able to unlock a flow of value-generating ideas.
Article source : https://blessingwhite.com/7-barriers-internal-innovation/
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10 Barriers to Employee Innovation
John Hall / Contributor / Apr 29, 2013
Fast Company hosted Innovation Uncensored in New York last week with the hope of inspiring leaders to spark new ideas and trends. Visionaries like Jack Dorsey (Twitter), David Karp (Tumblr), Justin Kan (Exec), and Diane Von Furstenberg (DVF Studio) shared experiences from their pasts and their visions for the future. I’ve been to a lot of conferences, and this experience certainly stood above the rest.
However, it was disappointing to hear attendees talk about the barriers they would face in bringing this knowledge back to their companies. Here are 10 barriers you should remove to enable your employees to take your company into the future:
1. Closed-Mindedness
At the conference, it was extremely common to hear a director or VP say, “That won’t ever fly at my company.” If I knew that my employees felt they couldn’t bring up an idea around me, I would go ahead and fire myself. Employees spend more time “in the trenches,” working with the minute details of your company, so if they come up with a radical innovation, listen! It could end up saving huge amounts of time and money.
2. Traditions
Past results should never be used to predict future success. New technology and lower barriers to entry have created a cluttered playing field, so it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. Keep your traditions if you want, but combine them with visions that will prepare you for an ever-changing future.
3. Jealousy
Business is a world of politics and jealousy. The best leaders and employees put this B.S. to the side and support the people around them. If an employee brings an innovative idea to you, don’t shoot it down just because the idea wasn’t yours. The best leaders try to hire people who are better than them, so it makes sense that your employees will come up with some innovations that you haven’t thought of yet.
4. Money
Innovation is expensive. Research and development budgets can eat up a lot of cash flow and present a level of risk that other line items don’t have. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look into and evaluate the risk and reward of each initiative. If there’s enough evidence that a risk is worth taking, then go ahead and loosen up the purse strings. It can be the difference between staying ahead of the curve and seeing your company fail.
5. Generational Differences/Age
There seemed to be a big age barrier at the conference, with the younger crowd grumbling that older leaders would never listen to their new ideas. Generational barriers are hard to overcome, but they need to be addressed and removed. Older people can be just as innovative as (and sometimes more innovative than) a young buck out of college. There is no excuse for any age to not listen to — and evaluate — a creative idea.
6. Communication
Communication is essential when presenting an innovative idea. Too often, the innovative ideas come from the “crazy person” in the office who always has a new idea. Encourage employees to present ideas in a concise way that makes it easier for others to understand. Poor communication and “flying by the seat of your pants” can lead to the failure of a great innovation.
7. Size
It’s easier to steer a dinghy than a cruise liner, but that doesn’t mean the cruise liner can’t turn. It’s natural to think your company can’t change course because of its size. In reality, if you don’t encourage your employees to innovate, smaller companies in your industry will win in the long run (and you may crash into an iceberg).
8. Education
After I left the conference, it was interesting to talk with friends in New York who didn’t attend. It was common to hear that their leaders weren’t making efforts to educate them on future trends. A leader is responsible for not only encouraging innovation, but also educating. Make sure your budget includes a conference, speaker, or activity to get the “creative juices” flowing to spark employee motivation.
9. Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is becoming a stronger requirement for proper leadership. Some leaders hold back because they don’t want to seem egotistical — or they’re just being lazy. One of the biggest factors to becoming a great thought leader is contributing to credible sources of information about your industry. If you aren’t doing this, then your employees won’t be as inspired to mimic your sense of innovation or create their own.
10. Resources
“We don’t have the capacity or bandwidth for something like that” is a common excuse people trot out when they’re presented with an innovative idea. You can find the capacity by bringing on new employees or redirecting resources if the right idea comes along. If you remove this barrier, you will more carefully consider what’s possible.
It’s not a must to take on every idea that comes from your employees (some can be downright crazy). However, you should create an environment where people are consistently encouraged to come up with innovative ideas. Always keep an open mind and evaluate these ideas when they come to you; many company success stories that I heard at Innovation Uncensored wouldn’t have happened with the barriers listed above. I’m hoping company leaders catch this article and welcome their employees back with an open mind about what they’ve learned.
John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that assists individuals and brands in growing their influence through thought leadership and content marketing programs. Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications, is the creator of Contributor Weekly. Connect with John on Twitter or Google+.
Article source : https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/04/29/10-barriers-to-employee-innovation/#6b72646d117d
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Q1. Are you innovative? Why or Why not?
Q2. What is the biggest barriers to innovation in your project?
Q3. One of above article suggests that there are 5 barriers to innovation. Do you think which one is the most critical factor?
1. Security concerns
2. Limited time and resources
3. Limited or no budget
4. Lack of skill sets
5. User acceptance/adoption
Q4. How do you tackle the troubles when you are facing the unsolvable situation?
Q5. When you tackle the troubles, do you have a tendency to apply new technology or to integrate the traditional one?
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[TED] Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action
How do you explain when things don't go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? Year after year, after year, they're more innovative than all their competition. And yet, they're just a computer company. They're just like everyone else. They have the same access to the same talent, the same agencies, the same consultants, the same media. Then why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is it that Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights Movement? He wasn't the only man who suffered in pre-civil rights America, and he certainly wasn't the only great orator of the day. Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled, powered man flight when there were certainly other teams who were better qualified, better funded -- and they didn't achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers beat them to it. There's something else at play here.
About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery. And this discovery profoundly changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it. As it turns out, there's a pattern. As it turns out, all the great inspiring leaders and organizations in the world, whether it's Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers, they all think, act and communicate the exact same way. And it's the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it, and it's probably the world's simplest idea. I call it the golden circle.
Why? How? What? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren't. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiated value proposition or your proprietary process or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by "why" I don't mean "to make a profit." That's a result. It's always a result. By "why," I mean: What's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in, it's obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations -- regardless of their size, regardless of their industry -- all think, act and communicate from the inside out.
Let me give you an example. I use Apple because they're easy to understand and everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: "We make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?" "Meh." That's how most of us communicate. That's how most marketing and sales are done, that's how we communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we're different or better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that. Here's our new law firm: We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients, we always perform for our clients. Here's our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats. Buy our car. But it's uninspiring.
Here's how Apple actually communicates. "Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?" Totally different, right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. I just reversed the order of the information. What it proves to us is that people don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it.
This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple. As I said before, Apple's just a computer company. Nothing distinguishes them structurally from any of their competitors. Their competitors are equally qualified to make all of these products. In fact, they tried. A few years ago, Gateway came out with flat-screen TVs. They're eminently qualified to make flat-screen TVs. They've been making flat-screen monitors for years. Nobody bought one. Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs, and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly well-designed products -- and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can't even imagine buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one from a computer company? But we do it every day. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all grounded in the tenets of biology. Not psychology, biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, from the top down, the human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate perfectly with the golden circle. Our newest brain, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, corresponds with the "what" level. The neocortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language.
In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn't drive behavior. When we can communicate from the inside out, we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from. Sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and figures, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn't feel right." Why would we use that verb, it doesn't "feel" right? Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language. The best we can muster up is, "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." Or sometimes you say you're leading with your heart or soul. I hate to break it to you, those aren't other body parts controlling your behavior. It's all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language.
But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do. The goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have; the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job; it's to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. Nowhere else is there a better example than with the Wright brothers.
Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th century, the pursuit of powered man flight was like the dot com of the day. Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we assume, to be the recipe for success. Even now, you ask people, "Why did your product or why did your company fail?" and people always give you the same permutation of the same three things: under-capitalized, the wrong people, bad market conditions. It's always the same three things, so let's explore that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was given 50,000 dollars by the War Department to figure out this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was extremely well-connected; he knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could find and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?
A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, they had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success. They had no money; they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on the Wright brothers' team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur. And The New York Times followed them around nowhere.
The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it'll change the course of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the result. He was in pursuit of the riches. And lo and behold, look what happened. The people who believed in the Wright brothers' dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others just worked for the paycheck. They tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that's how many times they would crash before supper.
And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later. And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing: the day the Wright brothers took flight, he quit. He could have said, "That's an amazing discovery, guys, and I will improve upon your technology," but he didn't. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich, he didn't get famous, so he quit.
People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.
But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something called the law of diffusion of innovation, if you don't know the law, you know the terminology. The first 2.5% of our population are our innovators. The next 13.5% of our population are our early adopters. The next 34% are your early majority, your late majority and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch-tone phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore.
We all sit at various places at various times on this scale, but what the law of diffusion of innovation tells us is that if you want mass-market success or mass-market acceptance of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18 percent market penetration, and then the system tips. I love asking businesses, "What's your conversion on new business?" They love to tell you, "It's about 10 percent," proudly. Well, you can trip over 10% of the customers. We all have about 10% who just "get it." That's how we describe them, right? That's like that gut feeling, "Oh, they just get it."
The problem is: How do you find the ones that get it before doing business versus the ones who don't get it? So it's this here, this little gap that you have to close, as Jeffrey Moore calls it, "Crossing the Chasm" -- because, you see, the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they're comfortable making those gut decisions. They're more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world and not just what product is available. These are the people who stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when you could have bought one off the shelf the next week. These are the people who spent 40,000 dollars on flat-screen TVs when they first came out, even though the technology was substandard. And, by the way, they didn't do it because the technology was so great; they did it for themselves. It's because they wanted to be first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe. In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe. The reason that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six hours, was because of what they believed about the world, and how they wanted everybody to see them: they were first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the law of diffusion of innovation. First, the famous failure. It's a commercial example. As we said before, the recipe for success is money and the right people and the right market conditions. You should have success then. Look at TiVo. From the time TiVo came out about eight or nine years ago to this current day, they are the single highest-quality product on the market, hands down, there is no dispute. They were extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic. I mean, we use TiVo as verb. I TiVo stuff on my piece-of-junk Time Warner DVR all the time.
But TiVo's a commercial failure. They've never made money. And when they went IPO, their stock was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then plummeted, and it's never traded above 10. In fact, I don't think it's even traded above six, except for a couple of little spikes.
Because you see, when TiVo launched their product, they told us all what they had. They said, "We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds live TV and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking." And the cynical majority said, "We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it. You're scaring us."
What if they had said, "If you're the kind of person who likes to have total control over every aspect of your life, boy, do we have a product for you. It pauses live TV, skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc." People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it, and what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.
Now let me give you a successful example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a gift. He didn't go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. "I believe, I believe, I believe," he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the word out to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the right time to hear him speak.
How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It's what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It's what they believed, and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the audience was white.
Dr. King believed that there are two types of laws in this world: those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by men. And not until all the laws that are made by men are consistent with the laws made by the higher authority will we live in a just world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. By the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech.
Listen to politicians now, with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They're not inspiring anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with "why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.
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Q1. Can you make a definition of good leadership?
Q2. Can you name any public figure who shows good leadership? For your choice, what was the most attractive points of him/her as a good leader?
Q3. What are the important components to be a good leader?
Q4. What kinds of person you are between a leader and a follower?
Q5. According to the movie clip, Ideas or innovations in the society are spreading out with 'the law of the diffusion of innovation'. Basically, people in public are divided into 5 groups which are innovators, early adopter, early majority, late majority and laggards. And new ideas are generally triggered by the innovators and early adopter and spreading out to other groups after that. In this context, first two group's role is very crucial and this bold and challenging attitude can be the prominent characteristics of the leader group. Among those 5 groups, do you think which group are you involved in ?
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Changing Monsoons and Climate: What’s the Rain Forecast?
UN CC:LearnFollow / Oct 25, 2018/ By Laura O’Connor
As I write this, winds in Southeast Asia have switched directions, bringing moist air from the ocean and causing torrential downpour over countless cities and village. It is the peak summer monsoon season — typically from mid-July to mid-August (varying from region to region). This marks a period of intense rainfall, delivering water and drenching the soil of nations across south and southeast Asia, northern South America, and, usually to a lesser extent, Northern Australia and West Africa.
To better emphasize the scale of monsoons, close to half of the world’s population lives in a region affected by this intense rainy season. Monsoon season is an intensely sensitive yet vital part of life in these regions.
In India, one of the nations most-highly affected by monsoons, as well as neighbouring countries, 75% of annual rainfall is supplied during the monsoons. This means drinking water, bathing water, water for crops and food preparation, hydroelectric power, and the countless other necessary uses of water. The monsoon season is, for many regions and communities, a lifeline and a necessity for agriculture, livelihood, and basic survival. The deep dependence on monsoons means that even a slight shift in timing or amount of rainfall can be chaotic and lethal.
Monsoons are triggered by a contrast in temperature between land masses and oceans, which triggers a reversal of wind patterns, causing an increase in precipitation, which we call a monsoon. As temperatures increase as a result of climate change, monsoons are altered, and levels of rainfall are skewed. Monsoons are becoming more unpredictable and irregular, entering periods of reduced rainfall in certain regions, specifically southern Asian regions, which has been documented by researchers from the past few monsoon seasons, and is projected to worsen in the future.
Using Vietnam as a case study, in 2016, reduced rainfall as a result of intensified La Niña conditions, induced by climate change, caused 2,000,000 people to experience water insecurity, with 600,000 hectares of crops being affected and damaged, triggering a humanitarian crisis. Conditions like these were mirrored in neighbouring Asian nations, including Thailand, Myanmar, India (where an estimated 300 million people were affected), and other highly-populated regions.
This specific drought continued into 2017, creating long-term food insecurity as a result of two weak monsoon seasons. This scenario of the life-threatening effects of a reduced monsoon reason is representative of what is predicted to be a long-term issue as a result of climate change.
As stated earlier, the primary issue is the increasing irregularity of monsoons, with periods of intense dry spells, sometimes followed by an unpredictably intense monsoon season. This year, rainfall levels increased, clocking-in at levels higher than normal. This is creating devastating floods and landslides, damaging communities that have already been rendered vulnerable after economic losses felt by past dry-spells.
Already, 511 people have been killed in India as a result of these natural disasters, as well as one million livestock, 81,146 hectares of crops, and 55,000 houses being damaged or destroyed. Refugee camps in Bangladesh have also been nearly destroyed, creating new humanitarian issues for already-vulnerable populations. The volatile and irregular rainfall levels of monsoon seasons are creating deadly problems for affected communities, which could only worsen as climate change intensifies.
Thus, the question remains — what is the solution?
While climate change research is important to make educated predictions on the intensity of the monsoons in order to properly prepare these communities, research and education on climate change is also important for long-term solutions. Understanding the causes and effects of irregular monsoon seasons is a crucial foundational step in creating a long-term plan of action against climate change. It is also important to note that while monsoons may only affect one portion of the world, it must be a global initiative against climate change that solves this issue.
About UN CC:Learn
UN CC:Learn is a partnership of more than 30 multilateral organizations supporting countries to design and implement systematic, recurrent and results-oriented climate change learning. Through its engagement at the national and global levels, UN CC:Learn contributes to the implementation of climate change training, education and public awareness-raising.
Article source : https://medium.com/uncclearn/changing-monsoons-and-climate-whats-the-rain-forecast-8a56c51d6de0
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Pollution in India Could Reshape Monsoons
Local emissions over the subcontinent make summer storms more erratic, and may have global consequences.
Sunil Amrith/ Jan 21, 2019
Anupam Nath / AP
Over the next decade, more than 400 large dams will be built on the Himalayan rivers—by India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan—to feed the region’s hunger for electricity and its need for irrigation. New ports and thermal power plants line the coastal arc that runs from India, through Southeast Asia, to China. India and China have embarked on schemes to divert rivers to bring water to their driest lands: Costing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, they are the largest and most expensive construction projects the world has ever seen. At stake in how these plans unfold is the welfare of a significant portion of humanity. At stake is the future shape of Asia, the relations among its nations.
The Indian subcontinent is the crucible of the monsoon. In its simplest definition, the monsoon is “a seasonal prevailing wind.” There are other monsoons, in northern Australia and in North America; none is as pronounced, as marked in its reversal between wet and dry seasons, as the South Asian monsoon. More than 70 percent of total rainfall in South Asia occurs during just three months each year, between June and September. Even within that period, rainfall is not consistent: It is compressed into just 100 hours of torrential rain across the summer months.
Despite a vast expansion in irrigation since 1947, 60 percent of Indian agriculture remains rain-fed, and agriculture employs about half of India’s population. Unlike China, unlike most large countries in the world, India’s population will continue to be predominantly rural until the mid-21st century. No comparably large number of human beings anywhere in the world is so dependent on such intensely seasonal rainfall. In the first decade of the 20th century, the finance minister in the imperial government declared that “every budget is a gamble on the rains”; more than a century later, the leading environmental activist Sunita Narain reversed the terms but retained the substance of the observation: “India’s finance minister is the monsoon,” she declared.
Climate is woven into the fabric of Indian social, economic, and political thought in a way that it is not (or is no longer) elsewhere. In the late 20th century, that claim would have raised hackles among scholars of South Asia; it might still do so today. A fundamental assumption of modernity was that we had mastered nature. The notion of India in thrall to the monsoon would seem to perpetuate a colonial idea of India’s irredeemable backwardness. To emphasize the power of the monsoon would be to portray Indian lives as so many marionettes moved by a climatic puppet master. That is how this story would have been understood a generation ago.
But now, alarmed by the planetary crisis of climate change, a reminder of nature’s power has different implications. This is not a story of geography as destiny. It is a story of how the idea of geography as destiny provoked, from the mid-19th century on, a whole series of social, political, and technological responses within and beyond India.
The South Asian monsoon has effects far beyond South Asia. We know this, at least in part, because of climate research undertaken in India in the 20th century. Sir Gilbert Walker, a pioneer of global climate science, wrote in 1927 that “the climate of India is of special interest, not merely as that of the greatest tropical region in the British Empire, but also because it seems to have been designed by nature with the object of demonstrating physical processes on a huge scale.” That sense of scientific opportunity, combined with the pressing material need to understand the monsoon, inspired a century of study in India. Charles Normand, Walker’s successor as head of the Indian weather service, insisted that the monsoon is “an active, not a passive, feature in world weather.”
Subsequent research has confirmed his view—the Asian monsoon is entwined with many aspects of the global climate. It has an important influence on global atmospheric circulation. The future behavior of the South Asian monsoon has implications for the whole world. Arguably no other part of the global climate system affects more people, more directly.
The breakthroughs in tropical meteorology of the late 20th century shed new light on the scale and complexity of internal variability in the monsoon on multiple timescales—from the quasiperiodic impact of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation system to the tropical-weather fluctuation pattern known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation. In recent years, the focus of scientific research has been on how the effects of anthropogenic climate change interact with the monsoon’s natural variability in dangerous and unpredictable ways.
The most fundamental forces driving the monsoon are the thermal contrast between the land and the ocean and the availability of moisture. Climate change affects both of these drivers of wind and rain. The warming of the ocean’s surface is likely to augment the amount of moisture the monsoon winds pick up on their journey toward the Indian subcontinent. But if the ocean surface warms more rapidly than the land, which appears to be happening in equatorial waters, this would narrow the temperature gradient that drives the winds, and so weaken circulation. Put simply, many climate models predict that the first of these processes will predominate: “Wet gets wetter” as a result of greenhouse-gas emissions. They predict, that is to say, that the moist monsoon lands will see an increase in rainfall.
But the monsoon is an intricate phenomenon, as meteorologists have long known. It is increasingly clear that monsoon rainfall is affected not only by planetary warming but also by transformations on a regional scale, including the emission of aerosols—from vehicles, crop burning, and domestic fires—and changes in land use. The urgent challenge for climate science is to disentangle and to understand these global and regional influences on the behavior of the monsoon. And so far, the monsoon has proved much harder to capture in models than, say, global temperatures.
The availability of detailed records of climate and rainfall in India—which themselves are a product of the history of Indian meteorology going back to the efforts of Henry Blanford and his colleagues in the late 19th century—have allowed scientists to reconstruct in detail the monsoon’s behavior over the past 60 years. The picture these data present is complex, and in some ways surprising. Average summer rainfall over India has declined by around 7 percent since 1950. The cause of this downward trend in rainfall lies in the pattern of India’s development since independence. Its explanation, that is to say, lies in the province of economic history.
In the late 1990s, research vessels observed exceptionally high concentrations of aerosols in the northern Indian Ocean. Satellite images showed a stain that spread across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and over the Indian Ocean—researchers called it the “brown cloud,” an accurate, if not a poetic, description of the haze. Between January and March 1999, a large team of investigators set out to understand this brown cloud, taking readings from their base at the Kaashidhoo Observatory on one of the most remote islands of the Maldives. The project was led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an Indian oceanographer based at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California. One of the scientists involved was the Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who around the same time also coined the term Anthropocene, referring to a new geological epoch in which human activity is the most important influence on Earth’s physical processes.
The project found that the haze was a noxious composite of sulfate, nitrate, black carbon, dust, and fly ash, as well as naturally occurring aerosols including sea salt and mineral dust. Three-quarters of the composition of the brown cloud could be attributed directly to human activity, especially concentrated along the densely populated Indo-Gangetic Plain and northwestern India. In this region, where up to 80 percent of the population remains rural, and where many rural families continue to be deprived of electricity, much of the black carbon is produced by domestic burning of biomass—wood, crop residue, dung, and coal— used primarily for cooking. Open crop burning accounts for the rest. The stoves used in households are inefficient and combustion is incomplete, producing large amounts of soot.
Apart from their likely effects on regional climate, these emissions also poison human bodies. By one estimate, more than 400,000 premature deaths each year in India can be attributed to indoor pollution. Black carbon combines, in the brown cloud, with sulfates and other aerosols—and the Indo-Gangetic Plain bears an additional burden in this respect, as a result of pockets of intensive industrial and extractive activity. Since the late 19th century, the Indo-Gangetic Plain has been the core region of India’s extractive industries, built around the rich coal and mineral deposits in the Chota Nagpur region. Further along the Yamuna River, the Delhi region is one of India’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, and its largest in absolute terms. Emissions have increased exponentially since the 1970s as India’s population has grown, as its economy has expanded, as inequalities within and among regions have widened. The Indo-Gangetic Plain suffers from a double pathology: The sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen-dioxide emissions that accompany energy-intensive growth are combined with the black carbon that comes from the use of cheaper, dirtier fuels by millions without access to electricity.
All this is shifting the monsoon’s patterns. Aerosols absorb solar radiation, allowing less of it to reach Earth’s surface. This cools the land, diminishes the temperature contrast between the land and sea, and weakens the atmospheric circulation that sustains the summer monsoon. Changes in circulation over the Indian subcontinent in turn affect the tightly integrated air-sea interaction that binds the Asian continent with the Indian Ocean, a system that already contains plenty of internal variability. Because of the way the Asian monsoon is linked to other parts of the planet’s climate, it is possible that aerosols over South Asia have global consequences. When all these effects are coupled with the impact of global warming on the ocean and the atmosphere, the instabilities multiply. Far from counteracting the effect of greenhouse gases in any simple sense, the impact of aerosols complicates them.
A further driver of regional climate change is rapid changes in land use. Over the past 150 years, forest cover over most parts of Asia has declined dramatically. The intensification of agricultural production in India, and the use of more water for irrigation, has affected the moisture of the soil, its capacity to absorb or reflect heat. Crops reflect more solar radiation than forests, which tend to absorb it; the greater reflexivity of land planted with crops makes it cooler, once again weakening the temperature differentials that drive circulation and rainfall. The tropical meteorologist Deepti Singh points out that climate models have often failed to predict the monsoon’s behavior in part because they are too abstract to take into account the “complex topography, temperature, and moisture gradients in the region that can influence the monsoon circulation.” The models omit, that is, precisely the details of landscape and microclimate that the meteorologists of a century earlier were so deeply interested in, which they depicted in their detailed local and regional maps of India’s climate.
We are left with the most bitter of ironies. Many of the measures taken to secure India against the vagaries of the monsoon in the second half of the 20th century—intensive irrigation, the planting of new crops—have, through a cascade of unintended consequences, destabilized the monsoon itself. When the geographers of the early 20th century wrote of “monsoon Asia,” they saw the monsoon as sovereign—it shaped the lives of hundreds of millions of people, who waited on its every move. Monsoon Asia means something quite different now, when the monsoon’s behavior, increasingly erratic, responds to human intervention.
Article source : https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/indias-monsoon-powerful-agent-climate-change/579940/
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Q1. Do you trust the weather forecast? Why or Why not?
Q2. What is the monsoon climate ?
Q3. What is your favorite weather type?
Q4. How do monsoons affect climate?
Q5. What is the crucial impact of climate change on monsoon climate?
Q6. What is the crucial impact of pollution or aerosol on monsoon climate?
Q7. What is the most memorable natural disasters recently in terms of climate change?
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The Science of Monsoons
Story by NASA Viz Team | Visualizations by Greg Shirah and Horace Mitchell and Alex Kekesi Released on July 8, 2016
A colorful, data-driven view into how monsoons work.
When you hear the word “monsoon,” images of floods and torrential rains may come to mind. But monsoons can also include intense periods of dryness.
A monsoon is a seasonal change in wind and rain patterns observed in certain parts of the world. The changes are driven by seasonal shifts in the temperature differences between the ocean and land. Across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the summer and winter monsoons dominate the region’s climate.
Between April and September, warm land temperatures drive pressure patterns and winds that draw in moist air from the Indian Ocean, producing heavy rainfall. During the winter months, the winds move in the opposite direction, blowing cool air over land toward the ocean, leading to very dry conditions.
Using computer models and data collected by satellites, scientists are able to study monsoon cycles in great detail and monitor their impacts on humans and the environment. Watch the video for a tour of Earth's monsoon regions.
This visualization uses satellite and modeled data to show how monsoons develop
in different regions of the globe.
In southern and Southeast Asia, summer monsoon rains provide the water needed
for growing rice and other crops.
Excessive rainfall during the summer monsoon season can have a devastating impact,
causing severe flooding.
Measurements from Earth-observing satellites like NASA's GPM mission (shown above)
help scientists to study monsoons and their effects from space.
Article source : https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12303
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Monsoon Climate: Location and Natural Vegetation | Climatology|Geography
Article shared by : Sirisha P
In this article we will discuss about:-
1. Location of Monsoon Climate
2. Temperature of Monsoon Climate
3. Air Pressure and Winds
4. Precipitation
5. Natural Vegetation.
1. Location of Monsoon Climate:
Monsoon climate is generally related to those areas which register complete seasonal reversal of wind direction and are associated with tropical deciduous forests but there are some departures from this close relationship and near correspondence between the regions of monsoon climate and tropical deciduous forests. Monsoon climate is found in the zone extending between 5° and 30° latitudes on either side of the equator (fig. 39.2).
In fact, this zone comes under the domain of trade wind belt which experiences seasonal shifting due to northward and southward migration of the sun. Onshore winds blow for six months from warm tropical oceans towards the continents and offshore winds blow for another six months from land to the sea.
■ The areas of monsoon climate are divided in the following categories:
(1) True monsoon areas include India, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thai land, Combodia, Laos, North and South Vietnam, southern China, Philippines, and northern coastal area of Australia.
(2) Areas of monsoonal tendencies or pseudo- monsoons are found along the south-west coast of Africa including the coasts of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast; eastern Africa and western Madagascar (Malagasy).
(3) Areas of monsoon effects include north-east coast of Latin America e.g., east Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, French Guyana, and north-east Brazil. Besides, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Island also enjoy mild monsoonal effect.
(4) Areas of modified monsoon are found in parts of Central America and south-east USA.
2. Temperature of Monsoon Climate:
Though mean annual temperature is fairly high but summer and winter seasons are sharply differentiated due to northward (summer solstice) and southward movement of the sun (winter solstice).
■ There are three main seasons in a year in Indian Subcontinent and surrounding monsoonal areas e.g.:
(2) Humid warm summer season (July to October), and
(3) Dry winter season (November to February).
Average temperature of warm dry summer months ranges between 27°C and 32°C but maximum temperature ranges between 38°C and 48°C during May and June. Warm humid summer months record average temperatures ranging between 20°C and 30°C. The mean temperature during day in winter months varies from 10°C to27°C.
Annual range of temperature ranges between 2°C and 11°C and is controlled by nearness or remoteness of the sea (i.e. distance from the sea), continental, latitudinal and altitudinal influences. For example, annual range of temperature increases inland (5.3°C at Rangoon, 11°C at Mumbai, 18.4°C at Allahabad, 20.2°C at Agra).
Similarly, diurnal range of temperature is low in the coastal areas but it increases inland. Diurnal range of temperature is much higher in dry summer season than in other seasons.
For example, in the Ganga plains of India maximum temperature during day time may go as high as 44°C to 48°C and the minimum temperature during nights may come down as low as 20°C to 25°C thus registering diurnal range of 23°C to 24°C. The temperature during May and June becomes exceptionally high due to prevalence of hot winds locally known as loo.
3. Air Pressure and Winds of Monsoon Climate:
Monsoon areas are affected by high and low pressure systems due to winter and summer seasons respectively. In fact, there is complete reversal of pressure gradients over Asiatic landmass because of northward and southward migration of the sun and consequent differential heating of the continent and adjoining oceanic areas.
Due to southward migration of the sun after 23 September (autumnal equinox) high pressure centres are developed on the landmass of Asia during winter season while low pressure is developed in the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans, with the result pressure gradient is developed from land areas to the oceanic areas resulting into the outflow of surface winds from high pressure centres of the land areas towards oceanic low pressure areas.
This wind system having north-east direction is called winter monsoon which is nothing more than the reestablished northeast trade winds which are displaced during summer season due to northward shifting of inter-tropical convergence (ITC) because of northward migration of the sun.
These offshore winds are generally dry because they come from over the land areas but wherever they pass over the oceanic areas; they pick up moisture and yield rainfall when effectively obstructed. For example, north-east monsoon winds while passing over Bay of Bangal pick up moisture and give rainfall in the coastal regions of Tamil Nadu during winter season.
The pressure system is completely reversed during summer season when the sun registers northward migration after 21 March and becomes almost vertical over tropic of Cancer on June 21. Thus, thermally induced low pressure develops due to very high temperature over huge landmass of Asia.
These low pressure centres are further intensified due to northward movement of inter-tropical convergence (ITC) up to 20° to 35°N latitudes while high pressure centres are developed over southern Indian and Pacific Oceans, with the result sea to land pressure gradient is steepened and onshore winds are generated. These onshore winds are the south-west or summer monsoon winds which are moist as they pass over the sea surfaces.
According to the advocates of the concept of thermal origin of monsoon the north-east or winter monsoons and south-west or summer monsoons are originated due to differential heating of Landmasses and oceanic areas during summer and winter seasons and resultant thermally induced high and low pressure areas.
This wind system having north-east direction is called winter monsoon which is nothing more than the reestablished northeast trade winds which are displaced during summer season due to northward shifting of inter-tropical convergence (ITC) because of northward migration of the sun.
These offshore winds are generally dry because they come from over the land areas but wherever they pass over the oceanic areas; they pick up moisture and yield rainfall when effectively obstructed. For example, north-east monsoon winds while passing over Bay of Bangal pick up moisture and give rainfall in the coastal regions of Tamil Nadu during winter season.
The pressure system is completely reversed during summer season when the sun registers northward migration after 21 March and becomes almost vertical over tropic of Cancer on June 21. Thus, thermally induced low pressure develops due to very high temperature over huge landmass of Asia.
These low pressure centres are further intensified due to northward movement of inter-tropical convergence (ITC) up to 20° to 35°N latitudes while high pressure centres are developed over southern Indian and Pacific Oceans, with the result sea to land pressure gradient is steepened and onshore winds are generated. These onshore winds are the south-west or summer monsoon winds which are moist as they pass over the sea surfaces.
According to the advocates of the concept of thermal origin of monsoon the north-east or winter monsoons and south-west or summer monsoons are originated due to differential heating of Landmasses and oceanic areas during summer and winter seasons and resultant thermally induced high and low pressure areas.
According to them the summer and winter monsoons are south-east and north-east trade winds. In fact, the south-east trades while crossing over the equator during summer season due to northward shifting of pressure belts caused by northward migration of the sun becomes south-westerly in direction according to Ferrel’s law.
Since these winds come from over the ocean, they become moist and give rainfall. According to the advocates of the dynamic origin of monsoon the belt of doldrums and North Intertropical Convergence (NITC) are drawn over south and south-east Asia during summer season due to northward migration of the sun and thus equatorial westerlies of the belt of doldrum are also established over south and south-east Asia and thus they become south-west monsoons. The tropical disturbances (cyclones) associated with the intertorpical convergence (ITC) yield copious rainfall.
4. Precipitation of Monsoon Climate:
Monsoon regions receive most of their annual rainfall through cyclonic and orographic types of rains though convective mechanism also yields some rainfall. On an average, the average annual rainfall is around 1500mm but there are much variations in the temporal and spatial distribution.
Sometimes, a few areas receive less than 500mm of mean annual rainfall. Even the temporal distribution of rainfall within a single year is highly variable because more than 80 per cent of mean annual rainfall is received within 3 wet months of summer season (July, August, and September). Thus, the rainy season records much surplus water whereas dry winter and summer seasons have marked deficit water because dry seasons receive less than 25 mm of rainfall per month.
There is maximum evaporation during warm dry summer months which results in desiccation of soils and marked reduction in soil water. This seasonal regime of annual rainfall gives deciduous character to the vegetations which shed their leaves during the transitional period between winter and summer seasons.
Most of the annual monsoonal rainfall is received through moisture laden south-west monsoon winds which come from over the ocean surface. The outbreak of monsoon generally occurs in India around mid-June. When these moisture laden monsoon winds strike the mountain barriers they give copious rains.
This is why the western coastal plains of India receive more than 2500mm of annual rainfall because the Arabian Sea Branch of monsoon winds are obstructed by the Western Ghats and hence they are forced to ascend and soon become unstable and saturated. The leeward sides of the mountains fall in rain-shadow region because descending winds are adiabatically warmed and thus become stable and dry. This is why Mangalore, located on the windward side of the Western Ghats receives 2000mm of annual rainfall whereas Bangalore, located on the leeward side receives only 500mm of annual rainfall.
The eastern coast of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh receives much rainfall during winter season through north-east monsoons as they while passing over the Bay of Bengal, pick up sufficient moisture and yield rainfall. January and February are generally driest months in India but the Ganga plains receive some rains from westerly disturbances or temperate cyclones coming from Mediterranean Sea.
Variability of rainfall in terms of both amount and duration is the characteristic feature of monsoon climate. Secondly, monsoonal rainfall is basically cyclonic in character.
5. Natural Vegetation of Monsoon Climate:
The number of plant species is far less in the monsoon climatic regions than the equatorial climatic regions. The height of most of the trees ranges between 12m and 30m. There are four strata or layers in vertical structure of the tropical deciduous forests. The uppermost and second strata consist of trees; the third stratum is formed by shrubs whereas the ground stratum represents herbaceous plants. Most of the trees are deciduous but the shrubs of the third stratum are evergreen.
The trees are characterized by thick girth of stems, thick, rough and coarse bark and large hydromorphic leaves or small, hard xeromorphic leaves. Deciduous trees of monsoon climate denote complete adaptability to wet-dry climate. The large hydromorphic leaves enable the trees to trap more and more rainfall during wet season but these are shed in dry periods to conserve moisture while small and hard xeromorphic leaves enable the trees to withstand dry weather and water deficiency. Important species of trees include sal, teak, bamboo, mango tree, mahua, jamun, neem, shisham etc.
The tropical and subtropical monsoon deciduous forest biome is one of the most disturbed ecosystems of the world. The forests have been so rapidly destroyed through both natural (forest fires) and anthropogenic processes due to rapacious utilization of forest resources for commercial and industrial purposes and large-scale clearance through mass felling of trees for agricultural land that the vegetation cover has shrunk to a very critical size.
More than 80 per cent of annual rainfall occurring in only 3 wet months of July, August and September through heavy rainstorms generates maximum surface runoff which is causing enormous loss of rich fertile soils through accelerated rate of soil erosion.
Article source : http://www.geographynotes.com/climate/monsoon-climate/monsoon-climate-location-and-natural-vegetation-climatologygeography/2866
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5 ways you can personally fight the climate crisis
27 May 2019/ Jaime Nack/ President, Three Squares Inc.
As we watch the youth take to the streets over climate change, and read daily news reports on sea-level rise, glacier melt rates and the alarming amount of carbon in the atmosphere, many are left with a desire to act. Yet, the gravity of the climate crisis can seem overwhelming – especially for those who do not work in the environmental arena. Without a clear roadmap of simple steps to take, inertia sets in.
After working on climate action projects for nearly two decades with diverse communities around the globe, I’ve seen this inertia first-hand. The universal question seems to be: “The climate crisis is here, but what can I do?”
There are many ways to take action. Whether you are a CEO, a student or a professional athlete, your voice matters. We all have a unique reach and can create a ripple effect across our spheres of influence. We all have our personal sphere (social and familial relationships), our community sphere (home city and local organizations), our workplace sphere (job environment or campus environment for students), our industry sphere (professional associations) and our global sphere (social media reach and global affiliations).
1) Start the discussion
Research shows that the average individual makes about 35,000 decisions every day. Imagine if you placed a climate action lens over even a small percentage of these choices? What to eat? Where to shop? What to buy? Where to work? What candidate to vote for? Your choices matter. And the people you interact with on a daily basis (in real life and in your online presence) are watching your actions.
When you consider the climate crisis in your decision-making, others notice. Discussion begins, and the effect of your decision is multiplied. The reason that brands recruit influencers to wear their clothes, drive their cars and visit their hotels is because they know that people are more likely to follow the preferences of those they relate to or aspire to emulate. We all have peer groups – those who travel within the same circles. With each climate-friendly decision you make, you start a discussion among these groups about why you chose to drive an electric vehicle, why you implemented a carbon-neutrality commitment at your company, or why you decided to buy stocks in a clean tech company.
2) Tap into your relationship capital
We often are not even aware of the value of the web of relationships that we keep. The concept of “six degrees of separation” can also be applied to “six degrees of impact”. If you recognize an environmental challenge but are not in a position of power to enact the necessary change, you may be connected to a decision-maker who is. Speak up and inspire action in others – you do not need to be the leader of a nation or a celebrity to influence the masses.
3) Get to know your local, regional, national and global policy landscape
The policy landscape can vary greatly from one region to the next. The more you learn about existing policies (those that help and those that damage the environment), the more you will realize how regulations and legislation can play a critical role in supporting the adoption of clean technology. As more of the global populace moves into cities, the policies that guide the creation of these communities must give back more than is taken in terms of energy, waste, water, soil health and other key impact areas.
4) Amplify the voices of others
Look also, if it applies, to your community’s indigenous people – those who have amassed so much knowledge from living closely with the land, and who are now on the frontlines of experiencing its rapid degradation. With an amplified platform, their expertise can create truly transformative solutions.
5) Recognize the journey
So, what are you waiting for? To fight the climate crisis, we need as many people as possible working in unison towards one common goal: a healthy planet.
Article source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/5-ways-you-can-personally-fight-the-climate-crisis-change-global-warming?fbclid=IwAR3mgOKmEB2SchvsfZY_8kRZ-bFju42FrC-ozJZ9VtKeawSAXl4rrU2Xt6Q
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Q1. Do you feel the difference in weather condition currently?
Q2. What is the monsoon?
Q3. What would happen to our society due to the changes of climate pattern?
Q4. According to an article air pollution can cause the changes of climate patterns. What do you think of this? If we need to faces the drought situations more frequently due to the air pollution, would you try to fix the problem?
■ Environmental Activism
Q1. Do you know what the principal environmental problems are in your regional area?
Q2. Are you a Environmentally Conscious Global Citizen ? Why do you think so?
Q3. What actions do you take to protect environment?
Q4. What is the most concerned environmental issue? What actions do you take to alleviate the troubles?
Q5. Would you move other clean countries to raise your kid? Why or why not?
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