Warming, cooling trends observed in country's different regions

New Delhi, Mar 6 (UNI) West coast, central India, interior Peninsula and northeast region of the country has shown significant warming trend in the recent decades.

However, cooling trend has been observed over northwest India and some parts in southern India, the Government told the Rajya Sabha quoting the India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.

IMD has been monitoring several parameters like temperature, rainfall, humidity and pressure for studying climate change over more than 100 years.

The year 2006 was the warmest on record since 1901. The ten warmest years on record are 2006, 2002, 2007, 1998, 2004, 2001, 2003, 1958, 1987 and 1941.

The analysis of the recent 50-year rainfall data on regional scale indicates an increasing trend in intense rainfall events over east-central India along with decrease in number of rainy days.

However, on all-India scale, the monsoon season rainfall quantum does not show any long term trend.

Measurements of atmospheric turbidity (attenuation of incoming solar radiation) has shown a steady increase as a result of anthropogenic activities.

Analysis of chemical composition of rainwater has also shown increasing acidic content in many parts of the country as a consequence of increased industrial and vehicular activity (SO2 and NOx) Although, total column ozone has not shown any significant variation, a moderate increase in low level ozone concentrations has been observed as a result of pollutants.

Mean annual surface air temperatures show a significant warming of about 0.5 degrees celsius during the last century and the recent data indicates a substantial acceleration of this warming after 1990s.

Study of local sea level rise at various places from long-term Indian Tide gauge data indicates the observed trends during the past century to be about 1mm per year.

UNI NAZ KD MIR KP1358