Abstract
Monsoon rainfall is the principle source of fresh water essential for agricultural practices and human sustenance in the Indian subcontinent during summer. This study is primarily designed to analyse the extent of rainfall and temperature variations in Pakistan over the northern monsoon belt by using satellite and ground-based observations. The satellite gridded data for rainfall are acquired from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) along with rainfall and temperature data from 15 ground stations of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Data were analysed to identify changes in climatic parameters and spatiotemporal shift in monsoon precipitation in Pakistan. Analysis shows that there is significant correlation between TRMM and PMD datasets. Decrease in monsoon rainfall is observed during the last two decades. A more pronounced decrease is observed in monsoon rainfall during the years 2010–2017, i.e., 17.58 mm/year accompanied by 0.18°C increase in temperature. A southward spatial shift in monsoon rainfall occurrence (rainfall ≥2.5 mm/day) is observed while an eastward shift in moderate to heavy monsoon rainfall is identified. This study may be helpful for an agricultural country like Pakistan which is heavily dependent on monsoon rainfalls for assessing the impacts of changing monsoon season and to adapt towards changing climate.
Highlights
Impending climate change and the impacts it will exert on precipitation distribution patterns pose an imminent threat to aquatic ecosystems around the globe. e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [5] has stated that drought-hit areas might grow in both space and time, and intensity of heavy precipitation events would likely rise as a manifestation of impacts of climate change on fresh aquatic systems
Along with the glacial meltdown, the monsoon acts as a backbone for socioeconomic structure of the Indian subcontinent by providing water for key agriculture sector and domestic use. is rainfall system is a part of the global circulation system which helps to regulate the Advances in Meteorology temperature of the Earth by transferring heat from the tropical areas towards higher latitudes [3]
It is evident from figure that both the datasets are strongly correlated with r (Pearson value) ranging from 0.86–0.97
Summary
Mean rainfall from one year to another [7]. e summer monsoon system over South Asia is recognized as a fully coupled ocean-land-atmosphere system which involves interactions with mountain ranges of the region too; all the feedback and mechanisms involved have not been entirely explored yet [19]. E devastating oods of 2010 were a hydrologic and sociologic event of extreme magnitude in Pakistan. The event was in uenced by many other factors like snowmelt due to rising temperatures and faulty water management practices, the event was primarily marked with an abnormally heavy and prolonged rainfall event. Ese unusual events gave rise to an interesting debate in scienti c and social communities on monitoring and investigating the extreme monsoon precipitation that result in devastating oods. For a country like Pakistan, improvement in management practices for natural water assets is of utmost importance as rainfall is a seasonal phenomenon in the country. Precipitation trends during both monsoon and postmonsoon seasons in Pakistan are analysed and their link with temperature trends has been investigated by employing ground-based and satellite observations.
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