A study of heavy snowfall in Kashmir, India in January 2017

Nagaraju

Rafiq

et al. 2018

Weather

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A significant change in the precipitation pattern over India has been reported in previous studies. This change includes an increase in heavy precipitation and a decrease in light and/or moderate precipitation. This study examines the possible link between these changes and regional climate conditions, using regional surface temperature and Vertically Integrated Moisture Transport (VIMT) records. It is reported that precipitation extremes during the southwest (SW) monsoon season show coherent variability with surface temperature over India. The precipitation spectrum shows significant changes from cold to warm years, with increases in heavy precipitation and decreases in light and/or moderate precipitation. The study reveals a decreasing trend in VIMT over the Bay of Bengal, which is consistent with decreases in the number of monsoon depressions over the region. It is observed that an increase in VIMT over the Arabian Sea shows coherent variation with precipitation extremes over India. The results reported in this article are crucial when considering the increase in drought and flood events in a changing climate.

“…India has witnessed frequent droughts and floods in recent decades (De et al ., ; Mishra and Srinivasan, ; Mishra, ; ; Rafiq and Mishra, ). Goswami et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of links between regional climate change and precipitation extremes over India

Nagaraju

Rafiq

et al. 2018

Weather

Self Cite

“…India has witnessed frequent flood and drought disasters over the past few years (De et al, 2005;Mishra and Srinivasan, 2013;Mishra, 2015Mishra, , 2016Mishra and Rafiq, 2017). Model results project an intensification of rainfall over most of India, with the most intense rainfall events predicated to occur over Western India (WI) and North Eastern India (NEI) (Rupa Kumar et al, 2006).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finer resolution of the IMD data used in the study helps in the investigation of the impact of global warming on monsoon rainfall over a smaller region, such as CI, WI or NEI. This study is crucial in the context of the frequent occurrence of floods and droughts over various parts of India during recent years (De et al, 2005;Mishra and Srinivasan, 2013;Mishra, 2015Mishra, , 2016Mishra and Rafiq, 2017). Precipitation patterns over these regions have changed significantly during recent decades.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the impact of global warming on precipitation patterns in India

Meteorological Applications

2018

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The past few decades have witnessed a change in precipitation patterns around the world. This change includes an increase in heavy precipitation and a decrease in light and moderate precipitation. Global/regional warming has been attributed as one of the major factors causing the observed change in precipitation patterns. Past studies over the Indian region have not focused much on quantification of the impact of warming on changes in precipitation patterns. The present research quantifies the impact of warming on precipitation patterns over the Indian region. For this purpose, rain gauge‐based high‐resolution gridded precipitation data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for 113 years between 1901 and 2013 are used to link the changes in precipitation patterns over India during the South West (SW) monsoon season with warming using a new method that focuses on inter‐annual differences rather than time series. It has been reported that during the SW monsoon period, there is an increase of about 51.85% ± 19% in the top 10% precipitation for each degree (K) increase in temperature. Decreases of about 15–30%/K in low and moderate precipitation have also been reported per 1 K increase in temperature. The impact of warming is more severe over Western and North Eastern India and during July and August. An increase in heavy rainy days of about 46.53% ± 14% per 1 K increase in temperature has been reported over the Indian region. Low and moderate rainy days show a decrease of about 24.67% ± 9.53% for a unit degree increase in temperature. Results reported in this research point out increasing trends in droughts and floods due to increased heavy precipitation and decreased low and moderate precipitation in a warming environment.

“…These heavy precipitation events cause flood-like disasters. Recently, various parts of the Indian region experienced flood-like events [26][27][28]. The present technique can be very useful for the monitoring of near-real-time flash flood events, which can be helpful for mitigation and adaptation actions against flood-related disasters.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Remote Sensing of Near-Real-Time Heavy Precipitation Using Observations from GPM and MFG over India and Nearby Oceanic Regions

Rafiq

The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Remote Sensing

2018

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This study deals with the integration of merging highly accurate precipitation estimates from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) with sampling gap-free satellite observations from Meteosat 7 of the Meteosat First Generation (MFG) to develop a regional rainfall monitoring algorithm to monitor precipitation over India and nearby oceanic regions. For this purpose, we derived precipitation signatures from Meteosat observations to co-locate them against precipitation from GPM. A relationship was then established between rainfall and rainfall signature using observations from various rainy seasons. The relationship thus derived can be used to monitor precipitation over India and nearby oceanic regions. The performance of this technique was tested against rain gauges and global precipitation products including the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP), Climate Prediction Centre MORPHing (CMORPH), Precipitation Estimation from Remote Sensing Information using Artificial Neural Network (PERSIANN) and Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). A case study is presented here to examine the performance of the developed algorithm in monitoring heavy rainfall during the flood event in Tamil Nadu in 2015. This is the first attempt to use near-real-time observations from GPM and MFG to monitor heavy precipitation over the Indian region. Due to its finer resolution and near-real-time availability, this technique can be used to monitor near-real-time flash floods.