[1] Observational records and reconstructions from tree rings reflect premonsoon (March to May) temperature cooling in the western Himalaya during the latter part of the 20th century. A rapid decrease of minimum temperatures at around three times higher rate, as compared to the rate of increase in maximum temperatures found in local climate records is responsible for the cooling trend in mean premonsoon temperature. The increase of the diurnal temperature range is attributed to large scale deforestation and land degradation in the area and shows the higher influence of local forcing factors on climate in contrast to the general trend found in higher latitudes of the northern Hemisphere.

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A network of 12 tree-ring width chronologies of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara) from the western Himalayan region, India, has been used to reconstruct mean spring (March–May) temperature variations back to A.D. 1600. The most conspicuous feature of the temperature reconstruction is the long-term cooling trend since the late 17th century that ended early in the 20th century. The warmest 30-yr mean for the 20th century was recorded during 1945–1974. However, this warming, in the context of the past four centuries is well within the range of natural variability, since warmer springs of greater magnitude occurred in the later part of the 17th century (1662–1691).

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Spring precipitation, representative of regional‐scale features, was reconstructed since A.D. 1731 using 15 site ring width chronologies of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara (Roxb. ex Lambert) G. Don), prepared from distantly located moisture‐stressed sites in the western Himalayan region. This is so far the strongest tree‐ring‐based precipitation reconstruction in terms of variance explained in the calibration model (A.D. 1897–1986) from the western Himalayan region. The twentieth century experienced the driest and wettest years in the whole reconstructed series. The 10‐ and 20‐year means also indicate extreme precipitation periods in the twentieth century. The increasing precipitation trend noticed in the reconstructed data of the late twentieth century closely matches with instrumental data.