UPSC Prelims Bits For Today 20 June 2022 | Daily Important Selective Current Affairs For UPSC

”UPSC Prelims Bits For Today” is every day published in the morning between 11:00 AM to 12:00 Noon and contains selective current affairs articles. ”UPSC Prelims Bits For Today” covers various topics from UPSC Prelims Syllabus and is very helpful and time managing for UPSC Aspirants. The framing of this daily current affairs compilation article is easy to read and understandable also.

In the ”UPSC Prelims Bits For Today” article, we focus on UPSC Preliminary exam-oriented current affairs covering various sections from leading National Newspapers, PIB, and other various official sources.

Protected Areas Representativeness Index(PARI)

• The Protected Areas Representativeness Index (PARI) indicator measures how well terrestrial protected areas represent the ecological diversity of a country.
• PARI estimates the extent to which terrestrial biodiversity is included in protected areas.
• It integrates information from a global protected areas database with modelled fine-scaled spatial variation in biodiversity composition.
• This metric is calculated by CSIRO using high-resolution remote sensing data and biological records of species’ locations.
• A score of 100 indicates that a country’s terrestrial protected areas nearly perfectly represent the country’s ecosystem diversity, and a score of 0 indicates very low representativeness (≤5^th-percentile of PARI values).

Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)

What is IOD?

• The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between two areas (or poles, hence a dipole) – a western pole in the Arabian Sea (western Indian Ocean) and an eastern pole in the eastern Indian Ocean south of Indonesia.
• In scientific terms, the IOD is a coupled ocean and atmosphere phenomenon, similar to ENSO but in the equatorial Indian Ocean.
• The IOD affects the climate of countries that surround the Indian Ocean Basin, and is a significant contributor to rainfall variability in this region.

Key Factors that determine Indian Monsoon

• The expectations of a good monsoon are premised on the persistence of a La Niña, the converse of the El Niño and characterised by a cooling of the Central Pacific waters.
• However, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), another index of significance to the monsoon, is expected to be negative. Whether the La Niña can compensate for the dampening of the IOD remains to be seen.

Geneva Package

Key Points

• On June 17, member countries of the WTO wrapped up the Ministerial Conference’s twelfth outing (MC12) securing agreements on relaxing patent regulations to achieve global vaccine equity; ensuring food security, according subsidies to the fisheries sector and continuing moratoriums relevant to e-commerce, among others. Together they constitute the “Geneva Package.”
• Negotiators could not reach agreements on issues such as permissible public stockholding threshold for domestic food security, domestic support to agriculture, cotton, and market access.
• Within the next six months, members are expected to decide on increasing the scope of the agreement to cover the production and supply of COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics as well.

 WTO’s Ministerial Conference

• The MC is at the very top of WTO’s organisational chart.
• It meets once every two years and can take decisions on all matters under any multilateral trade agreement. Unlike other organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, WTO does not delegate power to a board of directors or an organisational chief.
• All decisions at the WTO are made collectively and through consensus among member countries at varied councils and committees.
• This year’s conference took place in Geneva, Switzerland.

Marine Heatwaves (MHWs)

About Marine Heatwaves

Due to global warming, the tropical Indian Ocean, at the surface, is warming at a faster rate as compared to the rest of the global ocean. The high sea surface temperatures are more susceptible to generating extreme temperature conditions that persist over days to months and are termed as Marine Heatwaves (MHWs).

Why the Bay of Bengal is more prone to tropical cyclones?

• The Bay of Bengal exhibits high sea surface temperatures (about 28°C) throughout the year and is more prone to tropical cyclones.
• The Bay of Bengal is home to about 5-7% of the total number of tropical cyclones occurring globally each year and this makes the North Indian Ocean vulnerable to the highest number of fatalities globally.
• Amphan was the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal in the last 21 years and intensified from category 1 (cyclonic storm) to category 5 (super cyclone) in less than 24 hours.

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