Abstract
This study estimates the temperature trends over India and seeks to understand the contribution of land use and land cover (LULC) changes towards the change in the temperature trends (warming or cooling) during 1981–2006 by using ‘Observation minus Reanalysis’ (OMR) method. We find that the India got warmer by 0.1 °C per decade during 1981–2006 and the LULC changes contributed to cooling over India by 0.02 °C per decade during this period. The contribution of land use changes to the temperature trends depends on the type of LULC and their conversion from one type to another. With the exception of dense forest, all land cover conversions to agriculture lead to cooling whereas conversion from dense forest to agriculture results in warming. The contribution of LULC changes towards cooling over India during 1981–2006 is due to the reduction of area under shrubs/ small vegetation and subsequent increase of the area under agricultural/ fallow land. The analysis shows that even though the LULC changes contributed towards overall cooling during 1981–2006 over India, it contributed towards warming during 1991–2006. We find that the cooling caused by LULC changes during 1981–2006 is due to the cooling contributed during 1981–1990. Our overall results have implications for future land use change strategies that can be undertaken over India in order to avoid further worsening the Indian climate.
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