Abstract
Climate change impact varies across different altitudinal ranges and demands local specific management strategies for water resource and farming system management. The present study analyses spacio-temporal climate parameters across different altitudes of Himachal Pradesh a hilly state of India. Analysis shows that annually, minimum temperature has significantly decreased by -0.09°C at altitude I (350 - 400 m) while maximum temperature has significantly increased by 0.05°C at altitudes I and II (1400-1500 m) and decreased significantly by -0.08°C at altitude III (2000- 2100 m). Higher regions Altitude – IV (2900-3000 m) received lowest rainfall (746.1 mm) with 30.2 % variation. Seasonal rainfall variability was higher in post monsoon (102 - 174%) and least in monsoon (21 - 57%). Annual rainfall at altitude I is strongly irregular (PCI 20.1 to 22.3), followed by altitude – IV (PCI 15-25); altitude – II irregular (PCI 15-20) and altitude – III moderate to irregular (PCI 12 -19) rainfall. Seasonal Index values for four altitudes fall between 0.91-0.96 revealed that rainfall is irregular and markedly seasonal with longer drier season. Higher wavelet powers in altitude - I and II after 2005 suggests frequency of extreme rainfall occurrence had increased.
Highlights
Climate change is inevitable; it is imperative to known the variability of climate change so that necessary measures can be taken at local levels for adapting to such changes
Minimum temperature was in AltitudeIV with 19.6 % variation and maximum temperature was in Altitude- I with 6.3 % variation
The study reveals that annual variability was more for minimum temperature (19.6%) in higher altitude and for maximum temperature in lower altitude
Summary
Climate change is inevitable; it is imperative to known the variability of climate change so that necessary measures can be taken at local levels for adapting to such changes. Extreme temperature and rainfall variability have significant negative impacts on crop production. Decreased number of rainfall events but increasingly common high rainfall events was reported by Dourte et al (2012) The impacts of such extreme events in hills will leads to migration of species towards higher altitudes, loss/drying of traditional water sources, changes in planting time and dates, reduced crop yields and increased vulnerability of farming communities to climatic changes. It is important to know trends of temperature and rainfall in space and time at local levels so that region. In this paper we aim to analyse the temperature and rainfall trend and pattern over different altitude of Himachal Pradesh on monthly, seasonal and annual timescale
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