Spatio-temporal precipitation variability over Western Ghats and Coastal region of Karnataka, envisaged using high resolution observed gridded data

Abstract

Climatic changes in the recent decades have led to large variations in precipitation over the different geographical regions of the globe. Changes in precipitation pattern over the space and time can severely affect the country like India, which has a large spatio-temporal variability in the precipitation. Any shift in the mean precipitation pattern pose a challenge to economy, agricultural farming and the ecosystem of these regions. In the present study, we analyze the seasonal spatio-temporal variation in trends of long term (1901–2013) observed high resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) gridded daily precipitation data of the Indian Meteorological Department over Western Ghats and coastal region of Karnataka, vulnerable to the risks of climate change. Our analysis shows increasing trend in seasonal ratio of precipitation over the Southern coastal plains and the adjacent Western Ghats region during pre-monsoon (MAM) while the southern coastal plains show decreasing trend in monsoon period (JJAS). Daily intensity index of precipitation during monsoon shows increasing trend in northern plains with decreasing trend in the medium precipitation events. Our study finds that different topographic regions of Karnataka have different responses in the trends of precipitation, particularly the response of plains is quite different to that of the higher elevated Ghat region.