Climate Change Variability in Coastal Karnataka, India

Abstract

AbstractClimate change is one of the biggest environmental threats to food production, water availability, forest biodiversity and livelihoods. It is widely believed that developing countries such as India will be impacted more severely than developed countries. Global warming and Climate Change is projected to increase the number of extreme temperature and rainfall events, and hence climate variability is expected to show an upward trend. It is very important to understand the past trends and variability in rainfall, minimum and maximum temperature in Karnataka since the knowledge on the past could provide guidance for the future. The Arabian Sea and the North Kanara coast belong to the “Indo-Australian Marine Bio-geographic Region” considered to be the richest in the world for biodiversity. The coastal backwaters, estuaries, river-mouths are well known for their productivity. Some of them like the Aghanashini, Kali and Sharavati river backwaters, are even today so. The rivers from the Western Ghats carry great quantity of forest organic matter and deposit the same in the coastal waters including the sea. The current climate variability in Karnataka has been analyzed using the IMD daily rainfall data for the period of 1971–2005 and CRU data for the temperature for the period 1901–2002. The Costal Karnataka districts have an average rainfall of >25 mm/day. Decrease in precipitation trend has been observed in Coastal Karnataka. Rainfall has decreased by 17.69, 1.87 and 22.38 mm/day/100 year in Mangalore, North Kanara and Udupi respectively. The Increase in minimum temperature is 0.141, 0.146 and 0.111°C/100 year, whereas increase in maximum temperature is observed as 0.148, 0.146 and 0.113°C/100 year in districts of Mangalore, North Kanara and Udupi respectively.KeywordsClimate changeClimate variabilityCoastal ecosystemEnvironmental threatsIndiaKanara coast