Investigation of temperature and its indices under climate change scenarios over different regions of Rajasthan state in India

Abstract

Abstract The ongoing increases in concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gas will most likely affect global climate for the rest of this century. Global warming brings a huge provocation to society and human beings. Single extreme events and increased climate variability have a greater impact than long-term changes in the mean of climatic variables. This study analyzed the temperature projections for Rajasthan state, India using data obtain from two General Circulation Models (GFCM21 and HadCM3) for three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Range of Emission Scenarios (SRES) A1B, A2, and B1. A 30 years of maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature for the period 1976–2005 has been obtained from India Meteorological Department (IMD) and by using LARS-WG5 to generate the long-term weather series for three different periods i.e. 2011–2040 (2025s), 2041–2070 (2055s), and 2071–2100 (2085s). Further to determine the changes in extreme temperature events, the data for the baseline period and the future periods was represented by eight extreme temperature indices. Results illustrate that an increase in minimum and the maximum temperature are observed in all the three future periods. The average mean temperature for base period and three future periods over four regions of Rajasthan was observed highest in region 3 which shows an incessantly increased in mean temperature about 2.6 °C i.e. north-east and north-west part of Rajasthan. Two GCMs depicts that the incessant temperatures may be increase in the future and future maximum temperature in all the seasons varies from 2.43 °C to 4.27 °C in the direction from south to north of Rajasthan during 2071–2100. While for minimum temperature, the range of temperature changes varies from 0.23 °C to 1.42 °C from south-east to north-west of Rajasthan during 2011–2040. In the temperature indices, the number of tropical nights (TR20), warmest day (TX90p), warmest night (TN90p) and summer days (SU25) is expected to increase during all three future periods. The maximum changes was found in region 2 (39.4 days) and region 1 (38.8 days) during the 2071–2100 periods, followed by 2041–2070 and 2011–2040. In all the four regions, the annual occurrence of Cold Spells Duration Indicator (CSDI) decreased and Warm Spells Duration Indicator (WSDI) increased for all three future periods.