The high Himalayan mountains in the north of India are important sources for generating and maintaining the climate over the entire northern belt of the Indian subcontinent. They also influence extreme weather events, such as the western disturbances over the region during winter. The work presented here describes some current trends in weather and climate over the western Himalaya and suggests some possible explanations in the context of climate change. The work also shows how the special features of Indian orography in the western Himalaya affect climate change in the long term, changing the pattern of precipitation over the region. Data analysis of different ranges of the western Himalaya shows significant variations in temperature and snowfall trends in the past few decades. Possible explanations for the changing climate over the western Himalaya are proposed, in terms of variations in cloudiness. The possible effects of climate change on the number of snowfall days and the occurrences of western disturbances over the western Himalaya are also analysed.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This study discusses the observed long-term (1991-2015) and short-term (1991-2000 and 2001-2015) trends in winter temperature and precipitation over Northwestern Himalaya (NWH) along with its constituents, i.e. Lower Himalaya (LH), Greater Himalaya (GH) and Karakoram Himalaya (KH). An overall warming signature was observed over NWH since maximum, minimum and mean temperatures followed rising trends with a total increase of 0.9C, 0.19C and 0.65C respectively, in 25 years, the increase being statistically significant for maximum and mean temperatures. However, warming was not consistent over all zones of NWH with minimum temperature at LH showing anomalous cooling by 0.83C (statistically significant at  = 0.05) during 25 years. The rise in mean temperature was observed highest at GH, i.e. 0.87C (1991-2015) followed by KH, i.e. 0.56C, which is in agreement with observations of comparatively higher rate of glacier retreat over GH than KH as reported in several studies. Total precipitation (rainfall + snowfall) was found to increase whereas snowfall was found to decrease with concurrent significant increase in rainfall at all zones of NWH. The spatiotemporal winter climatic variations over NWH support the impact on recently reported findings on the Himalayan snow cover and glacier variations at different durations.