Temperature and precipitation trend over 139 major Indian cities: An assessment over a century

Abstract

The increasing temperature in an urban area has adversely affected the Earth’s environment, human health and has been a subject of prior considerable attention. Hence, for the sustainable development and adaptation of the urban population to climate change, it is essential to find the trend and magnitude of temperature and precipitation over Indian cities. An endeavor has been made in the present study to find the trend and magnitude of temperature and precipitation over 139 major Indian cities with respect to different Koppen climatic zones using Climatic Research Unit datasets of last 115 years (1901–2015). The annual and seasonal trend and magnitude of temperature and precipitation of these cities were assessed using non-parametrical modified Mann–Kendall and Sens’s slope test. The results indicate that the annual and seasonal temperature trend was significantly deceasing over the cities of north western region whereas an increasing trend in the south eastern cities of India. A significant relationship was observed between temperature and precipitation in the hot steppe (BSh), dry winter humid subtropical (Cwa) and tropical wet and dry (Aw) climatic zone. The distribution of precipitation trend is highly heterogeneous and uneven as compared to temperature. The eastern part of India shows decreasing precipitation trend in comparison with the western part.