A decade ago, I was able to get away from a terrible flood that killed more than 500 people in the southern India city of Chennai (formerly known as Madras). The bus taking me from the city barely managed to avoid rising water slowly but inexorably engulfing the roads.
My escape was only possible because I had been tracking the movement of a cyclone that had brought the deluge. That flood was not unusual. Once known for its light cotton fabric designs known by the Madras name and most popular in the 1960s, Chennai since has gained notoriety for frequent flooding.
In other articles, I have analyzed how recent floods in Chennai are not attributable to anthropogenic global warming, as some suggest, but rather to poor urban planning that has resulted in inadequate rainwater drainage and construction in areas that had naturally retained water.
Chennai is notorious for something else: its summer heat. Lately, the mainstream media has portrayed the extreme temperatures of the city as a sign of a climate crisis. But readings from a temperature station located near my former Chennai residence debunk this claim.
Dating back to 1855, records from Chennai’s Meenambakkam weather station (MWS) challenge the apocalyptic narrative of the purported runaway global warming dominating headlines. The data reveal a more nuanced story that tells of a modest rise in average annual temperatures over the last 170 years – a period that includes a record high set way back in the 19th century – and a modern warming trend that owes more to asphalt and jet engines than to carbon dioxide.
Since the mid-19th century, the annual average temperature measured at MWS has risen by less than half a degree Celsius – at a tortoise-like pace of 0.294 degrees Celsius per century. This is a fraction of the HadCRUT global model’s 0.65 degrees per century, which is often cited as evidence of a planet in peril. More striking still, the hottest day in this long record didn’t occur in the fossil-fuel-drenched 21st or 20th centuries but rather in May 1892.
This fact alone should give pause to those who paint Chennai (or for that matter most metropolitan cities) as buckling under unprecedented heat driven by global warming.
It is also worth noting the influence of the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI), which is a phenomenon common to all of India’s densely populated cities. Cities trap heat in their concrete jungles, artificially raising local temperatures, as do airports’ vast expanses of pavement and jet exhaust.
The city of Chennai is no exception. The MWS is nestled just 300 meters from the runway of Chennai International Airport.
Before the 1950s, the airport was a sleepy outpost, handling a handful of flights a day. By the 1980s, it had begun its ascent as a hub connecting Europe, Asia, and points beyond. Traffic surged through the 2000s. Today, it’s India’s third-busiest airport, radiating heat mere steps from the Chennai weather station’s sensors.
The station’s readings since the 1980s align suspiciously with the airport’s growth. Before the jet age, temperature increases were quite slow but accelerated after the1980s. Coincidence? Maybe or maybe not. However, it seems likely that much of the warming denoted as a product of “climate change” in Chennai could be reflecting the transformation of a modest airstrip to an international gateway.
Further, the winter warming at MWS has been nearly negligible, registering just 0.09° Celsius per century. If global warming were the dominant force, we’d expect a more uniform rise across seasons. Instead, the data point to a localized, seasonal skew.
The fact that Chennai’s highest recorded temperature occurred in 1892, long before the era of modern industrialization and urbanization, is a powerful reminder that extreme weather events are not a recent phenomenon. This record, set during the British colonial period, predates the widespread use of fossil fuels and the subsequent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. This is a reminder that climate discourse should embrace an evidence-based approach that acknowledges the substantial role of local environmental factors that contribute to temperature trends.
This commentary was first published at BizPac Review March 28, 2025.
Photo by Ganesh Partheeban on Unsplash.
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