Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Trend analysis of rainfall and temperature and its relationship over India

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study investigated the trends in rainfall and temperature and the possibility of any rational relationship between the trends over the homogeneous regions over India. Annual maximum temperature shows an increasing trend in all the homogeneous temperature regions and corresponding annual rainfall also follow the same pattern in all the regions, except North East. As far as monthly analysis is concerned, no definite pattern has been observed between trends in maximum and minimum temperature and rainfall, except during October. Increasing trends of maximum and minimum temperature during October accelerate the water vapor demand and most of the lakes, rivers, ponds and other water bodies with no limitation of water availability during this time fulfills the water vapor demand and shows an increasing trend of rainfall activity. This study shows there exists no direct relationship between increasing rainfall and increasing maximum temperature when monthly or seasonal pattern is concerned over meteorological subdivisions of India, however we can make a conclusion that the relation between the trends of rainfall and temperature have large scale spatial and temporal dependence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arora M, Goel NK, Singh P (2010) Evaluation of temperature trends over India. Hydrol Sci J 50(1):81–93

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandyopadhyay A, Bhadra A, Raghuwanshi NS, Singh R (2009) Temporal trends in estimates of reference evapotranspiration over India. J Hydrol Eng 14(5):508–515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betts RA, Falloon PD, Goldewijk KK, Ramankutty N (2007) Biogeophysical effects of land use on climate: model simulations of radiative forcing and large-scale temperature change. Agric Forest Meteorol 142:216–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonan GB (1997) Effects of land use on the climate of the United States. Clim Chan 37:449–486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brunetti M, Buffoni L, Maugeri M, Nanni T (2000a) Precipitation intensity trends in northern Italy. Int J Climatol 20:1017–1031

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brunetti M, Buffoni L, Maugeri M, Nanni T (2000b) Trends of minimum and maximum daily temperatures in Italy from 1865 to 1996. Theor Applied Climatol 66:49–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chase TN, Pielke RA, Kittel TGF, Nemani RR, Running SW (2000) Simulated impacts of historical land cover changes on global climate in northern winter. Clim Dyn 16:93–105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chaudhari QZ (1994) Pakistan's summer monsoon rainfall associated with global and regional circulation features and its seasonal prediction. Proceedings of the International conference on monsoon variability and prediction, Trieste

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen LX, Dong M, Shao YN (1992) The characteristic of international variations on the east Asian Monsoon. J Meteorol Soc Japan 70:397–421

    Google Scholar 

  • Christy JR, Norris WB, Redmond K, Gallo KP (2006) Methodology and results of calculating central California surface temperature trends: evidence of human-induced climate change? J Clim 19:548–563

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cochran WG (1952) Chi-square test of goodness of fit. Ann Math Stat 23:315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz RV, Harasawa H, Lal M, Wu S, Anokhin Y, Punsalmaa B, Honda Y, Jafari M, Li C, Huu Ninh N (2007) Asia. Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 469–506

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimri AP, Dash SK (2012) Wintertime climatic trends in the western Himalayas. Clim Change 111:775–800

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Domroes M, El-Tantawi A (2005) Recent temporal and spatial temperature changes in Egypt. Int J Climatol 25:51–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ElNesr MM, Abu-Zreig MM, Alazba AA (2010) Temperature trends and distribution in the Arabian Peninsula. Am J Environ Sci 6(2):191–203

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feddema JJ, Oleson KW, Bonan GB, Mearns LO, Buja LE, Meehl GA, Washington WM (2005) The importance of land-cover change in simulating future climates. Sci 310:1674–1678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gadgil A, Dhorde A (2005) Temperature trends in twentieth century at Pune, India. Atmos Environ 35:6550–6556

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallo KP, Owen TW, Easterling DR, Jamason PF (1999) Temperature trends of the US historical climatology network based on satellite designated land use/land cover. J Climatol 12:1344–1348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gosain AK, Rao S, Basuray D (2006) Climate change impact assessment on hydrology of Indian river basins. Curr Sci 90:346–353

    Google Scholar 

  • Goswami BN, Venugopal V, Sengupta D, Madhusoodanan MS, Xavier PK (2006) Increasing trend of extreme rain events over India in a warming environment. Science 314:1442–1444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hennessey KJ, Gregory JM, Mitchell JFB (1997) Changes in daily precipitation under enhanced greenhouse conditions. Clim Dyn 13:667–680

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch RM, Slack JR, Smith RA (1982) Techniques of trend analysis for monthly water quality data. Water Resour Res 18(1):107–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) Climate Change 2007: The physical science basis. In: Solomon S et al (eds) Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Izrael Y, Anokin Y, Eliseev AD (1997) Vulnerability and adaptation assessments. Final report of the Russian country study on climate problem, Russian Federal service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, vol. 3, Task 3, Roshydromet, Moscow, Russia,105

  • Kadioglu M (1997) Trends in surface air temperature data over Turkey. Int J Climatol 17:511–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kendall MG (1975) Rank correlation methods. Charles Griffin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kothawale DR, Revadekar JV, Rupa kumar K (2010) Recent trends in pre-monsoon daily temp extremes over India. J Earth System Sci 119(1):51–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kothawale DR, Rupa Kumar K (2005) On the recent changes in surface temperature trends over India. Geophy Res Let 32, L18714

    Google Scholar 

  • Kothyari UC, Singh VP (1996) Rainfall and temperature trends in India. Hydrol Proc 10:357–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kripalani RH, Kulkarni A (1996) Assessing the Impacts of El Niño and non-El Niño-related droughts over India. Drought Network News 8:11–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Kripalani RH, Kulkarni A (2001) Monsoon rainfall variations and teleconnections over South and East Asia. Int J Climatol 21(5):603–616

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar V, Jain SK (2010) Trends in seasonal and annual rainfall and rainy days in Kashmir Valley in the last century. Quaternary Int 212:64–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar V, Jain SK, Singh Y (2010) Analysis of long-term rainfall trends in India. Hydrol Sci J 55(4):484–496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu A, He Y, Zhang Z, Pang H, Gu J (2004) Regional structure of global warming across China during twentieth century. Clim Res 27:189–195

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luo Y, Liu S, Fu S, Liu J, Wang G, Zhou G (2008) Trends of precipitation in Beijing River Basin, Guangdong province, China. Hydrol Proc 22:2377–2386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mann HB (1945) Non-parametric test against trend. Econometrica 13:245–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirza MQ, Dixit A (1997) Climate change and water management in the GBM Basins. Water Nepal 5:71–100

    Google Scholar 

  • Mooley DA, Parthasarathy B (1984) Fluctuations in all-India summer monsoon rainfall during 1871–1978. Clim Chan 6:287–301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mooley DA, Parthasarathy B, Sontakke NA, Munot AA (1981) Annual rain-water over India, its variability and impact on the economy. J Climatol 1:167–186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NATCOM (2004) India's Initial National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. National Communication Project, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India

  • Nayak S, Mandal M (2012) Impact of land-use and land-cover changes on temperature trends over Western India. Curr Sci 102(8):1166–1173

    Google Scholar 

  • Onoz B, Bayazit M (2003) The power of statistical tests for trend detection. Turkish J Engi Environ Sci 27:247–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Pal I, Al-Tabbaa A (2010a) Regional changes in extreme monsoon rainfall deficit and excess in India. Dyn Atmos Oceans 49:206–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pal I, Al-Tabbaa A (2010b) Long-term changes and variability of monthly extreme temperatures in India. Theor Applied Climatol 100:45–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pal I, Al-Tabbaa A (2011) Assessing seasonal precipitation trends in India using parametric and non-parametric statistical techniques. Theor Applied Climatol 103:1–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pant GB, Rupakumar K (1997) Climates of South Asia. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, p 320

    Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Dhar ON (1974) Secular variations of regional rainfall over India. Q J Royal Meteorol Soc 100(424):245–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Sontakke NA, Mount AA, Kothawale DR (1987) Droughts/floods in the summer monsoon season over different meteorological subdivisions of India for the period 1871–1984. J Climatol 7:57–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Sontakke NA, Munot AA, Kothawale DR (1990) Vagaries of Indian monsoon rainfall and its relationships with regional/global circulations. Mausam 41:301–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Rupakumar K, Kothawale DR (1992) Indian summer monsoon rainfall indices: 1871–1990. Meteorol Magazine 121:174–186

    Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Rupakumar K, Munot AA (1993) Homogenous Indian monsoon rainfall: variability and prediction. Ind Acad Sci Earth Planetary Sci 102:121–155

    Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Munot AA, Kothawale DR (1994) All-India monthly and seasonal rainfall series: 1871–1993. Theor Applied Climatol 49:217–224

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy B, Munot AA, Kothawale DR (1995) Monthly and seasonal rainfall series for all-India homogeneous regions and meteorological subdivisions:1871–1994. Research Report No. RR-065, IITM, Pune

  • Patra PK, Behera SK, Herman JR, Maksyutov S, Akimoto H, Yamagata T (2005) The Indian summer monsoon rainfall: interplay of coupled dynamics, radiation and cloud microphysics. Atmos Chem Phy Discu 5:2879–2895

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qian T, Co-authors (2006) Simulation of global land surface conditions from 1948–2004: Part I. Forcing data and evaluations. J Hydrometeorol 7:953–975

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rankova E (1998) Climate Change during the 20th century for the Russian Federation. In abstract Book of the 7th International Meeting on Statistical Climatology, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, May 25–29, Abstract 102:98

  • Rao GP, Kumar KK (1992) Climatic shifts over Mahanadi river basin in India. Clim Res 2:215–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ren G, Wu H, Chen Z (2000) Spatial pattern of precipitation change trend of the last 46 years over China. J Appl Meteorol 11(3):322–330

    Google Scholar 

  • Rupakumar K, Pant GB, Parthasarathy B, Sonatak NA (1992) Spatial and sub seasonal pattern of the long term trends of Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall. Int J Climatol 12:257–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sadhukhan I, Lohar D, Pal DK (2000) Pre-Monsoon season rainfall variability over Gangetic West Bengal and its neighborhood, India. Int J Climatol 20(12):1485–1493

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salinger MJ, Griffiths GM (2001) Trends in New Zealand daily temperature and rainfall extremes. Int J Climatol 21:1437–1452

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen PK (1968) Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall's tau. J Am Stat Assoc 63:1379–1389

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serrano A, Mateos VL, Garcia JA (1999) Trend analysis for monthly precipitation over the Iberian Peninsula for the period 1921–1995. Phy Chem Earth 24:85–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sinha Ray KC, Srivastava AK (2000) Is there any change in extreme events like heavy rainfall? Curr Sci 79:2

    Google Scholar 

  • Sneyer R (1990) On the statistical analysis of series of observations. Technical Note no. 143, WMO No. 415, World Meteorological Organization

  • Srivastava HN, Dewan BN, Dikshit SK, Rao P, Singh GS, Rao SS (1992) Decadal trends in climate over India. Mausam 43(1):7–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Subash N, Ram Mohan HS (2010a) Trend detection in rainfall and evaluation of standardized precipitation index as a drought assessment index for rice-wheat productivity over IGR in India. Int J Climatol. doi:10.102/joc.2188

    Google Scholar 

  • Subash N, Ram Mohan HS (2010b) Drought climatology of Indo-Gangetic Region of India using remote sensing and crop growth simulation models. PhD dissertation, CUSAT, Kerala, India

  • Subash N, Ram Mohan HS, Sikka AK (2011) Decadal frequency and trends of extreme excess/deficit rainfall during the monsoon season over different meteorological subdivisions of India. Hydrol Sci J 56(7):1090–1109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thapaliyal V, Kulshrestha SM (1991) Climate changes and trends over India. Mausam 42:333–334

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomozeiu R, Pavan V, Cacciamani C, Amici M (2006) Observed temperature changes in Emilia-Romagna: mean values and extremes. Clim Res 31:217–225

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wibig J, Glowicki B (2002) Trends of minimum and maximum temperature in Poland. Clim Res 20:123–133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wichansky PS, Steyaert LT, Walko RL, Weaver CP (2008) Evaluating the effects of historical land cover change on summertime weather and climate in New Jersey: Part I. Land cover and surface energy budget changes. J Geophys Res 113:D10107. doi:10.1029/2007JD008514

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilks DS (1995) Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences. Academic Press, 160–176

  • WMO (World Meteorological Organization) (1966) Climatic change. WMO Tech. Note. No. 79, WMO No. 195-TP-100. Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to one anonymous reviewer and Editor-in-Chief for critically going through the manuscript and giving valuable suggestions which improved the quality of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Project Directorate for Farming Systems Research, Indian Council of Agricultural Research Modipuram, 250110, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India

    N. Subash

  2. Natural Resource Management, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan II, New Delhi, 110012, India

    A. K. Sikka

Authors
  1. N. Subash
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. A. K. Sikka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to N. Subash.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Subash, N., Sikka, A.K. Trend analysis of rainfall and temperature and its relationship over India. Theor Appl Climatol 117, 449–462 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-1015-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-1015-9

Keywords