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Amidst Bollywood's romanticized landscapes and grandeur settings, depiction of the flora and fauna, roaring rivers and drought prone lands, is difficult to locate. But the new millennium has witnessed some new generation filmmakers, sensitized towards the ecological concerns, thus marking a shift from the illustration of idealised landscapes to the representation of nature's wrath. Since, cinema in India, has a deep-rooted impact on the masses, these creators employ films as tools to sensitize the population towards the climate change threat which though as perilous as the COVID-19 crisis, is often ignored by a significant amount of population. Dawning upon themselves the responsibility of environmental awakening, Nila Madhab Panda and Abhishek Kapoor highlight in their movies, Kadvi Hawa(2017) and Kedarnath(2018), respectively, the horrors of human callousness, leading to drastic change in Climatic condition in India. Panda's Kadavi Hawa, dealing with non-repayment of loans followed by suicides, portrays the heartwrenching imagery of environmental degradation and Climate change that has rendered the Village of Mahua, arid and infertile. Kapoor's Kedarnath on the other hand, appeals for action through horrifying imagery of the catastrophic floods that disrupted the holy town of Kedarnath, in 2013. Through a detailed analysis of the aforementioned visual portrayals, this article aims to emphasise as to how Films can play an important role in effectively addressing dealing with the issues related to Climate. Further, the rationale of this paper is to underscore the possibility of more such storylines, as a tool towards effective engagement and levitation of conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water insecurity, induced or intensified due to climate change, has emerged as a key policy challenge in poor and developing countries such as India. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this paper examines the role of perceived collective efficacy—people's shared beliefs about their group's capabilities to accomplish collective tasks—and trust in government as factors influencing Indians' engagement with government water conservation policies. Using a national survey of Indians (N = 4031), we found that individuals with high levels of perceived collective efficacy and trust in government are more likely to support government water conservation policies. Moreover, for individuals with low trust in government, higher collective efficacy is associated with greater policy support. Perceived collective efficacy is also associated with activist behaviours, while distrust is not. Increasing collective efficacy beliefs, for example through mass media channels and targeted campaigns, could help increase citizens' engagement with climate change adaptation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's position on climate change negotiations is likely to have far reaching implications for the success of global climate cooperation. Since the beginning of negotiations, the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) remained the centerpiece of India's stand. The stand started to evolve at the 15th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at Copenhagen in 2009, when India accepted voluntary commitments to reduce emission intensity. Though India still swears by CBDR, status of the principle in the negotiations has become doubtful after the Durban Climate Conference in 2011 committed all parties to take emission targets. This paper traces major transition points in India's negotiating position over the years and provides a descriptive context of its climate-related concerns. It analyzes the interview responses of 15 top scientists, experts, and negotiators to build upon core areas of climate change issues in India, its future role, and position in negotiations. Interviewees, in general, were in favor of protecting the carbon space for the poor who had very low emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world economies have unified in their efforts to achieve the goals of sustainable development. This is in sheer contrast to the earlier approaches where governments pursued goals for the growth and development of their respective economies. The struggle for growth and excellence has created imbalance in the economic development among countries, depleted some of the natural resources and has thus altered the ecological balance. The impact of this is being experienced in the form of global warming and climate change. Since this threatens the very existence of human life on earth, a course of action that would ensure a safe environment for future generations has become the need of the hour. Sustainable development is a term coined to ensure that development takes place in such a way that natural resources are sustained and passed on to the future generations unimpaired. This paper makes an attempt to understand the challenges encountered by India in achieving Sustainable development goals and offers suggestions to overcome them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding potential impacts of climate change on trans-boundary water resources is of paramount significance for devising adaptation strategies. Climate change adaptation strategies devised after due deliberations, promise dividends in socio-political, economic and environmental domains. Indus Water Treaty (IWT) signed in 1960 is internationally considered a successful mechanism for regulating water resources between Pakistan and India. At that time, climate change due to its late realization was not incorporated in it. As the climate change phenomenon became known globally, the scarcity of water also started getting pronounced thus leading both the countries towards a conflicting situation. While the long conflict between India and Pakistan has attracted extensive interest amongst the scholars, approaches related to climate proofing IWT have largely remained ignored in the academic literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of a study of long term trends in the characteristics of the within-season temporal profile of southwest monsoon rainfall over western India during the last five decades in relation to global warming induced regional climate change. In contrast to recent climate change analyses and projections, no significant long-term trends have been observed in this study. Slow decadal scale variations observed are analysed in relation to Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO). Daily variations in rainfall anomaly show opposite characteristics during negative and positive phases of PDO. The above-normal rainfall (>25%) is found during the starting phase of monsoon in negative PDO. Over the last decade, i.e., during 2000-2007, the seasonal rainfall amount, as well as seasonal span of southwest monsoon over western India is indicative of a gradual increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the temporal variability in monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall over a drought prone district in India. Long period rainfall data, from 1950 to 2012, were investigated over the district by analysis of anomalies and application of both parametric and non-parametric statistical tests. Decline in annual rainfall is evident in the study area with highest number of below mean rainfall years observed in the recent decade (2000–2009). Only 25% of the annual rainy days span across pre-monsoon, post-monsoon and winter season, reinforcing the high dependence of local communities on monsoonal rainfall for effective crop growth. Against this, a decreasing trend in monsoonal rainfall is noticed over the years. In conclusion, the present paper argues for district level rainfall studies which will provide local stakeholders with the necessary information for better planning and management of rainfall dependent development sectors, thus resulting in reduced overall socio-economic upheaval of rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, growing water insecurity in the Himalayan region has attracted new scientific research and fresh attention on policy. In this paper, we synthesize field research evidence from a sample of five Himalayan cities—three in Nepal and two in the western Indian Himalayas—on various forms of water insecurity and cities' responses to such challenges. We gathered evidence from a field research conducted in these cities between 2014 and 2018. We show how different types of Himalayan towns (mainly hilltop, foot hill, river side, touristic, and regional trading hub) are struggling to secure water for their residents and tourists, as well as for the wider urban economy. We found that even though the region receives significant amounts of precipitation in the form of snow and rainfall, it is facing increasing levels of water insecurity. Four of the five towns we studied are struggling to develop well-performing local institutions to manage water supply. Worse still, none of the cities have a robust system of water planning and governance to tackle the water challenges emerging from rapid urbanization and climate change. In the absence of a coordinated water planning agency, a complex mix of government, community, and private systems of water supply has emerged in the Himalayan towns across both Nepal and India. There is clearly a need for strengthening local governance capacity as well as down-scaling climate science to inform water planning at the city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency and intensity of extreme thermal stress conditions during summer are expected to increase due to climate change. This study examines sixteen models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) that have been bias-adjusted using the quantile delta mapping method. These models provide Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) for summer seasons between 1979 and 2010, which are regridded to a similar spatial grid as ERA5-HEAT (available at 0.25° × 0.25° spatial resolution) using bilinear interpolation. The evaluation compares the summertime climatology and trends of the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble (MME) mean UTCI with ERA5 data, focusing on a regional hotspot in northwest India (NWI). The Pattern Correlation Coefficient (between CMIP6 models and ERA5) values exceeding 0.9 were employed to derive the MME mean of UTCI, which was subsequently used to analyze the climatology and trends of UTCI in the CMIP6 models.The spatial climatological mean of CMIP6 MME UTCI demonstrates significant thermal stress over the NWI region, similar to ERA5. Both ERA5 and CMIP6 MME UTCI show a rising trend in thermal stress conditions over NWI. The temporal variation analysis reveals that NWI experiences higher thermal stress during the summer compared to the rest of India. The number of thermal stress days is also increasing in NWI and major Indian cities according to ERA5 and CMIP6 MME. Future climate projections under different scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) indicate an increasing trend in thermal discomfort conditions throughout the twenty-first century. The projected rates of increase are approximately 0.09 °C per decade, 0.26 °C per decade, and 0.56 °C per decade, respectively. Assessing the near (2022–2059) and far (2060–2100) future, all three scenarios suggest a rise in intense heat stress days (UTCI > 38 °C) in NWI. Notably, the CMIP6 models predict that NWI could reach deadly levels of heat stress under the high-emission (SSP5-8.5) scenario. The findings underscore the urgency of addressing climate change and its potential impacts on human well-being and socio-economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought complexity may not be accurately characterized by univariate meteorological or hydrological drought indices under the intensification of hydrological cycle due to climate change and human activities. In particular, such drought indices require long series of hydro-meteorological data, which are unavailable over ungauged and data-scarce catchments. In this study, a multivariate drought index, Standardized Precipitation Actual Evapotranspiration Index-Agro (SPAEI-Agro), is proposed, which combines meteorological and hydrological variables as precipitation (P), actual evapotranspiration (AET), runoff and groundwater (GW) of ungauged catchments and sub-catchment scales with diverse climatology. SPAEI-Agro was able to characterize severe drought events more accurately in humid and dry sub-humid sub-catchments compared to Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Streamflow Drought Index (SSDI) for Tunga-Bhadra River, India. SPEI (based upon potential evapotranspiration) and SSDI (based on streamflow) showed intensified drought characteristics compared to the new P, AET and GW-based drought indicator SPAEI-Agro in semi-arid and dry sub-humid climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What drives the development of climate policy? Brazil, China, and India have all changed their climate policies since 2000, and single-case analyses of climate policymaking have found that all three countries have had climate coalitions working to promote climate policies. To what extent have such advocacy coalitions been able to influence national policies for climate-change mitigation, and what can explain this? Employing a new approach that combines the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) with insights from comparative environmental politics and the literature on policy windows, this paper identifies why external parameters like political economy and institutional structures are crucial for explaining the climate advocacy coalitions’ ability to seize policy windows and influence policy development. We find that the coalitions adjust their policy strategies to the influence-opportunity structures in each political context—resulting in confrontation in Brazil, cooperation in China, and a complementary role in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensification of hydrologic cycle, and consequence rise of intense short-term precipitation, are considered as the manifestations of climate change. This may lead to an alteration in Intensity–Duration–Frequency (IDF) relationship that may change other hydrological processes as well. The IDF relationship also serves as a crucial information for the design of any water infrastructure. This study investigates the spatiotemporal changes in IDF relationship involving hourly precipitation events between past and future climate at various return periods across India that spans over a wide range of climatology. Contrast between historical (1979–2014), using two reanalysis data, and future periods (immediate future: 2015–2039, near-future: 2040–2059 and far-future: 2060–2100) is explored along with its spatial (re-) distribution. The future simulations of precipitation are derived from three climate models, participating in 6th phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), for three shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs), i.e., SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585. The results show that almost entire Indian mainland will experience an increase (~41–44%) in the hourly precipitation intensity under the worst climate change scenario (SSP585) with a return period as low as 2 years (almost a regular incidence). Furthermore, even under a moderate climate change scenario (SSP245), almost entire Indian mainland (~82–99% of spatial extent) will be affected from a significant increase (on an average 19%) in the hourly precipitation intensity. It is true for higher return periods as well. Findings of the study are alarming for many water infrastructures. This study develops new set of IDF curves across India considering a changing climate that will be useful to set a revised design criteria for water infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, for the first time, investigates the physical association between Predecessor Rain Events (PREs) and peak runoff generation in seven catchments over the Upper Mahanadi River basin (UMRB), India. A statistical–dynamical framework is developed to assess the compounding impact of PREs (as preconditioned events) versus riverine floods during both retrospective and projected climate. Based on models' fidelity to capture historical climatology, we select four out of nine Global Climate Models (GCMs) during historical (1980–2005), and the three projected time windows, that is, near future (2010–2039), mid‐century (2040–2069), and the far future (2070–2099) planning horizons with RCP8.5 emission scenario. We assess changes in compound flood hazards in historical versus projected periods using a newly proposed Bivariate Hazard Ratio (BHR) index, which represents the ratio between bivariate return periods during the projected versus the historical time windows. Assessing bivariate return periods (characterized by 'AND' operator) of rainfall‐driven compound floods shows decreased flood hazard in the mid‐century and far‐future planning horizons. Accounting ranges of uncertainty from climate model simulations and the propagation of uncertainty across the numerical model chain, overall we show considering PRE as the covariate, floods in larger catchments show an increase in compound flood hazard in the projected period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex relationship between climate knowledge production and political action has long been discussed. Critical and post-colonial analyses have looked at how models, used to produce scientific projections of climatic shifts, produce novel concepts of territory by the nation-state. The production of novel political temporalities has largely been ignored, however. This chapter critically analyses and compares two climate reports produced by the Indian Government. These reports, the first climatology reports developed in India, represent two significant shifts in the State's temporal imaginary of climate change and climate politics. First, the State, through these reports, temporally orients itself to the future (models of potential climates-to-be), rather than the past (attribution of historical responsibility to Northern states) as it had during the first half of international climate negotiations at the United Nations. Second, by focusing on the development of regional-specific models, the Indian government subtly continues to resist the imposition of a synchronized, global time of climate change, albeit through a nationalist framework. If the meaning of climate change is ultimately derived from a clash of competing temporalities between Global South and North, as well as between humanity and Nature, it speaks to the necessity of post-colonial scholars to engage directly with the meanings of the future in the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-resolution regional climate model (RCM) simulations are found to be very useful in deriving realistic climate change projection information. This study uses high-resolution dynamical downscaling framework (CCSM4-WRF) for India. To delineate the advantage of high resolution, we compared the results of 9-km resolution CCSM4-WRF simulations against the 50-km resolution RCM simulations under Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment-South Asia (CORDEX-SA) program. Quantitative estimations show that majority of CORDEX-SA models exhibit large dry bias (< − 4 mm/day) and low pattern correlation coefficient (PCC) over the Western Ghats (WG). Mean climatology of Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall simulated by high-resolution CCSM4-WRF outperforms the CORDEX-SA RCMs with low negative biases (~ 1 mm/day) and high PCC (≥ 0.755). This skill of CCSM4-WRF provides better confidence in its future projection at local scale. CCSM4-WRF projects future intensification of monsoon rainfall over most parts of India and reduction over southern WG, which is consistent with recent observed trends, but none of the CORDEX-SA RCMs could simulate this rainfall reduction. For all-India rainfall, ensemble mean of CORDEX-SA models projects an increase by 1.3 ± 0.9 mm/day and CCSM4-WRF projects 0.67 mm/day. Projected changes in socioeconomic variables such as population and gross domestic product (GDP) exhibit future enhancement over most parts of India but with spatial heterogeneity. Shared socioeconomic pathways scenarios show pronounced future population growth over Indian coastal areas and large enhancement in productivity over urban areas. Therefore, climate change projection information of ISM rainfall, together with enhanced future population and GDP, is useful for taking necessary steps for adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1995, a multimillion-dollar experiment – the Indian Ocean Experiment – discovered a dark mass of polluting air hovering above the Indian subcontinent. This mass of air was termed a cloud and found to be composed of a high amount of black carbon that was judged to be the second biggest threat to climate change after carbon-dioxide. In this article, an attempt is made to trace the life of black carbon by documenting its changing forms since the experiment. It emerges that the changing forms allow for the movement of air – smoke from traditional cookstoves and vehicular diesel emissions in India lead to the formation of the cloud – and reveal how an ethnography of air can be undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-scale perspectives are seldom included in planned climate change adaptations, yet farmers' perceptions can provide useful insights into livelihood impacts from interactions between climatic and other stressors. This research aims to understand how climate variability and other stressors are impacting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Azamgarh district, eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Data from 84 smallholder farmers were collected using mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interview and participatory methods, informed by multiple stressor and sustainable livelihood frameworks. Results revealed that farmers are increasingly facing problems caused by the reduced duration and number of rainy days, and erratic rainfall. Anomalies in seasonal cycles (longer summers, shorter winters) seem to have altered the local climate. Farmers reported that repeated drought impacts, even in years of moderate rainfall, are adversely affecting the rice crop, challenging the formal definition of drought. Climate variability, identified as the foremost stressor, often acts as a risk multiplier for ecological (e.g., soil sodicity), socio-economic (e.g., rising costs of cultivation) and political (e.g., mismatching policies and poor extension systems) stressors. In addition to climate stresses, resource-poor marginal groups in particular experienced higher risks resulting from changes in resource management regimes. This study provides an important cue to revisit the formal definitions of normal rainfall and drought, accommodating farmers' perceptions that evenly distributed rainfall, and not total rainfall is a key determinant of crop yields. Though India has developed adaptive measures for climate change and variability, integration of farmers' perceptions of climate and other stressors into such policies can improve the resilience of smallholder farmers, who have hitherto depended largely on autonomous adaptation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spawning and well-being of fish in an ecosystem are closely linked to climatic cues, viz., temperature and rainfall. Reduced fitness can affect the reproductive performance and lead to skipped spawning. Benchmarking the threshold fitness required for a fish population to achieve readiness for spawning, and understanding how climatic parameters influence the fitness will aid in predicting the fate of its reproductive success in future climatic conditions. This study determined the threshold condition factor pre-spawning fitness (Kspawn50) at which 50% of the female Channa punctata population can be deemed fit for spawning. The optimal climate within which pre-spawning fitness is attained by this species under Indian climatic conditions was also identified. The study was conducted from June 2015 to September 2016, covering two spawning seasons (June–August) in a Gangetic floodplain wetland of West Bengal, India. The non-parametric Kaplan–Meier method (survival fit) was used for estimation of pre-spawning fitness. "Ready to spawn" females were classified based on binary coding of the gonadal maturity stages. The thermal and precipitation range within which spawning fitness is achieved was identified by using the locally weighted smoothing technique. Female C. punctata pre-spawning fitness (Kspawn50) ranged from 1.26 to 1.39 with an estimated median of 1.29 units. Temperatures between 29 and 32 °C and rainfall above 100 mm were conducive to attaining the requisite pre-spawning fitness in C. punctata. This is the first study benchmarking the pre-spawning fitness and optimal climate for C. punctata. Understanding spawning requirements can inform the climate change–induced impacts on reproductive plasticity and evolutionary adaptations of snakeheads in the Ganga river basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature-depth profiles of boreholes of a region can be analysed to estimate the past variations in climate. Perturbations over the surface ground temperature are imparted deep into the Earth's subsurface. Western Ghats regions of India are considered to be one of the most ecologically rich regions and also play a crucial role in deciding the climatological characteristics of the country. This study quantifies the possible climate warming or cooling in the past century in the Western Ghats using temperature-depth profiles of five boreholes in a depth range of 140–198 m located in Koyna region (17.38° N, 73.74° E) of Maharashtra state, India. The analysis shows that there has been a significant warming of 0.8 ± 0.2 °C over the past 100 years in the region. The inferred warming is comparable with the trends of meteorological records of the area which yields an increasing trend of 0.56 °C in the surface air temperature (SAT). For further validation of results, a combined study of borehole temperature profiles and surface air temperature (SAT) profiles was done which showed that the period was warmer than the earlier long-term temperature records of the region by 0.8 °C. This pre-observational mean (POM) value seems to be consistent with previously studied POMs over India. This study provides a 'true estimate' of climate change and can be used as a robust technique to reconstruct the past climate warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last millennium climate reconstructions are complex and limit our understanding of the mechanisms behind environmental and climate variability. We present multi-proxy centennial-scale records from the Cherai, southwest India. The last 2000 cal yr AD record suggests a complex environmental condition that prevailed at the depositional site augmenting the role of natural as well as anthropogenic agents. Increased elemental variations and indices values indicate stronger weathering, presumably wetter conditions and intense precipitation. Provenance studies suggest diverse sources and the main composition fall close to the Charnockite and Gneissic composition. Multi-proxy data suggests that a shift towards wetter climatic conditions, which occurred from 910 to 1230 cal yr AD. The core also records a shift towards the drier conditions that started around 1230 cal yr AD with a loss in vegetation diversity. The pollution load index values suggest that the overall study area falls in moderate contamination levels, which are also substantiated with the diatom data indicating human influence in the natural habitat during the deposition time. The present study reveals that the enhanced Cd and As concentration is due to strong anthropogenic influence. We compared the multi-proxy record with other continental and marine palaeoclimatic records to explore global and/or regional trends in climate variability during the last 2000 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the impacts of changes in land cover and climate on runoff and sediment yield in a river basin in India. Land Change Modeler was used to derive the future land cover and its changes using the Sankey diagram approach. The future climatic parameters were derived from five general circulation models for two emission scenarios with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The land cover and climate change impacts on runoff and sediment yield were estimated using SWAT model. The results show important changes in land cover and indicate that urban and agricultural areas strongly influence the runoff and sediment yield. Among the land cover and climate change impacts, climate has more predominant (70%–95%) impact. Runoff and sediment yield are likely to decrease in both RCP scenarios in the future period. The impacts of land cover changes are more prominent on sediment yield than runoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is rising interest among research and development practitioners to arrive at impact driven solutions in the field of gender and climate change adaptation. Climate change adaptation interventions can be better targeted by being linked with type of climatic risks experienced by women farmers, their social profile and their needs based on the role they play in agriculture. This study presents a methodology to identify hotspots where climate change adaptation and gender based interventions could be prioritized. The methodology is illustrated for India. The results suggest 36 hotspots across 10 states in India, where large number of women farmers are impacted by high levels of drought probability, excess rainfall and heat wave. The target population in these hotspots comprise 14.4% of the total women farmers in the country. A socioeconomic characterization of the hotspot population highlights barriers, such as labor, credit and market access for female cultivators and lower wage rates for female laborers in these hotspots. Based on the constraints as well as the climatic risks faced by these women in the hotspots, the potential of climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices are emphasized. Additionally, a comparison of current research being done in the field with the results of the study highlights the potential to learn from current efforts for efficient scalability of gender and climate change adaptation interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in precipitation patterns as a result of increased atmospheric water vapour in a warming environment over the Indian region have been reported in the past few decades. However, these studies have not focused much on exploring the changes in atmospheric water vapour in a changing climate. The present study focuses on examining the variability of integrated precipitable water (IPW) over the Indian region derived from the Modern Era Retrospective‐Analysis for Research and Application (MERRA 2) model in a warming environment. The results suggest that the IPW has increased significantly in recent decades. Changes in the IPW are consistent with changes in regional warming over India. The results also point out an increase of about 4.98% ± 1.26% in the IPW for a 1°C increase in regional warming. The variability of IPW has been examined in a warming climate. An increase in regional temperature shows coherent variation with IPW. A decadal increase of about 1.69% has been reported in the IPW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western disturbances (WDs) are synoptic-scale cyclonic weather systems advected over Pakistan and northern India by the subtropical westerly jet stream. There, they are responsible for most of the winter precipitation, which is crucial for agriculture of the rabi crop as well for as more extreme precipitation events, which can lead to local flooding and avalanches. Despite their importance, there has not yet been an attempt to objectively determine the fate of WDs in future climate GCMs. Here, a tracking algorithm is used to build up a catalog of WDs in both CMIP5 historical and representative concentration pathway (RCP) experiments of the future. It is shown that in business-as-usual (RCP8.5) future climate simulations, WD frequency falls by around 15% by the end of the twenty-first century, with the largest relative changes coming in pre- and postmonsoon months. Meanwhile, mean WD intensity will decrease, with central vorticity expected to become less cyclonic by about 12% over the same period. Changes in WD frequency are attributed to the projected widening and weakening of the winter subtropical jet as well as decreasing meridional wind shear and midtropospheric baroclinic vorticity tendency, which also explain the changes in intensity. The impact of these changes on regional precipitation is explored. The decline in WD frequency and intensity will cause a decrease in mean winter rainfall over Pakistan and northern India amounting to about 15% of the mean—subject to the ability of the models to represent the responsible processes. The effect on extreme precipitation events, however, remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant invasion is highly responsive to rising temperature, altered precipitation and various anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, climate anomalies might provide opportunities to identify the relationship of past climate in deriving the distribution of invasive species and to detect their probable future distribution. In this work, we studied the correlation of climate anomaly i.e. temperature and precipitation with an indicative map of plant invasive species (1° grid) of India. The indicative map was generated through the plant data available from the project 'Biodiversity Characterization at Landscape Level'. Climate anomaly was calculated and represented by average temperature and precipitation using 'Climate Research Unit' data for the period of 1901 to 2000. A comparison of local geographically weighted regression (GWR) model and a global ordinary least square regression (OLS) model was carried out for statistical analysis to depict the correlation at 1° spatial grids. Overall, 20,501 records with a total of 9112 unique plots and 161 unique invasive species were recorded in the database that shows a maximum of 15 invasive species in a 0.04 ha nested quadrat. Cumulative analysis showed a maximum of 53 invasive species at 1° grid. Individually, GWR could reveal a significant correlation with invasive species distribution for temperature anomaly (r2 = 0.73, AIC= 2206) and precipitation anomaly (r2 = 0.74, AIC= 2221), while OLS model did not offer a good correlation (r2 < 0.001, AIC > 2400) compared to GWR. Combination of temperature and precipitation anomaly (shared model) showed an improved spatial correlation (r2 > 0.75) using GWR. Variation partitioning revealed the dominant influence (> 0.40 of variation) of temperature anomaly over Deccan Peninsula, Himalaya and North East zone. Influence of precipitation anomaly was more prominent over arid and semi-arid zone explaining > 0.35 of variation. Results revealed the strength of GWR to see the interaction of invasive plant species w.r.t. climate anomalies that explain the influence of spatial variation due to heterogeneity at varying neighbour distances. The significant correlation of invasive species with both the anomalies revealed the affinity of invasive species towards warmer, drier and wet places. This gives an indication that the distribution of invasive species could be triggered by climate anomaly. The use of other predictor variables (i.e. edaphic and anthropogenic) could be an inclusive input in a future perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various global circulation models predict a change in net irrigation requirements worldwide due to the impacts of climate change and in India, depending upon the region, irrigation requirements are likely to change by different magnitudes. The spatial distribution of trend in crop and irrigation water requirements of wheat projected for two climatic periods (2021-50 and 2051-80) across major wheat growing districts of the country were analyzed, making use of climate change projection data from NorESM1-M model of the CMIP5 in combination with RCP 4.5. Decreasing trends in water requirements were projected over 90 per cent of wheat growing districts in 2021-50, whereas increasing trends in crop and irrigation water requirement are expected over 95.4 per cent and 62.4 per cent areas, respectively in 2051-80 climatic periods. Results showed that decreasing/increasing trends projected in water requirements of wheat crop is due to change in crop growing period, which is projected to decrease across entire wheat growing area in 2021-50, whereas it is likely to increase over 78.2 per cent in 2051- 80 climatic periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assess the performance of two versions of Regional Climate Model (RegCM) in simulating the Indian summer monsoon over South Asia for the period 1998 to 2003 with an aim of conducting future climate change simulations. Two sets of experiments were carried out with two different versions of RegCM (viz. RegCM4.2 and RegCM4.3) with the lateral boundary forcings provided from European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast Reanalysis (ERA-interim) at 50 km horizontal resolution. The major updates in RegCM4.3 in comparison to the older version RegCM4.2 are the inclusion of measured solar irradiance in place of hardcoded solar constant and additional layers in the stratosphere. The analysis shows that the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, moisture flux and surface net downward shortwave flux are better represented in RegCM4.3 than that in the RegCM4.2 simulations. Excessive moisture flux in the RegCM4.2 simulation over the northern Arabian Sea and Peninsular India resulted in an overestimation of rainfall over the Western Ghats, Peninsular region as a result of which the all India rainfall has been overestimated. RegCM4.3 has performed well over India as a whole as well as its four rainfall homogenous zones in reproducing the mean monsoon rainfall and inter-annual variation of rainfall. Further, the monsoon onset, low-level Somali Jet and the upper level tropical easterly jet are better represented in the RegCM4.3 than RegCM4.2. Thus, RegCM4.3 has performed better in simulating the mean summer monsoon circulation over the South Asia. Hence, RegCM4.3 may be used to study the future climate change over the South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice-rice system and rice fallows are no longer productive in Southeast Asia. Crop and varietal diversification of the rice based cropping systems may improve the productivity and profitability of the systems. Diversification is also a viable option to mitigate the risk of climate change. In Eastern India, farmers cultivate rice during rainy season (June–September) and land leftovers fallow after rice harvest in the post-rainy season (November–May) due to lack of sufficient rainfall or irrigation amenities. However, in lowland areas, sufficient residual soil moistures are available in rice fallow in the post-rainy season (November–March), which can be utilized for raising second crops in the region. Implementation of suitable crop/varietal diversification is thus very much vital to achieve this objective. To assess the yield performance of rice varieties under timely and late sown conditions and to evaluate the performance of dry season crops following them, three different duration rice cultivars were transplanted in July and August. In dry season several non-rice crops were sown in rice fallow to constitute a cropping system. The results revealed that tiller occurrence, biomass accumulation, dry matter remobilization, crop growth rate, and ultimately yield were significantly decreased under late transplanting. On an average, around 30% yield reduction obtained under late sowing may be due to low temperature stress and high rainfall at reproductive stages of the crop. Dry season crops following short duration rice cultivars performed better in terms of grain yield. In the dry season, toria was profitable when sown earlier and if sowing was delayed greengram was suitable. Highest system productivity and profitability under timely sown rice may be due to higher dry matter remobilization from source to sink. A significant correlation was observed between biomass production and grain yield. We infer that late transplanting decrease the tiller occurrence and assimilate remobilization efficiency, which may be responsible for the reduced grain yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical cyclones are extreme random meteorological events that can have profound implications to coastal biodiversities. Given that the frequency, intensity and duration of these events are poised to increase due to the global climate change, understanding the ecological impacts of such erratic occurrences becomes imperative to devise better management strategies. The eventful passage of the tropical cyclone, Phyan, along the northwestern coast of India in November 2009, coupled with the availability of historical data presented a rare opportunity to elucidate the consequences on the polychaete assemblages of the Malvan Marine Sanctuary and their subsequent recovery. This was achieved by comparison of the pre- and post-Phyan seasonal data from four different sites in and around the Sanctuary. MDS analyses and polychaete community parameters suggested conspicuous cyclone related effects on the polychaete community characteristics in the three outer stations off Malvan, whereas the relatively protected bay station remained more or less unscathed. Impacts, attributable to the cyclone apart from seasonal variations, included changes in polychaete composition, reductions in total polychaete density, species diversity, evenness and functional groups. Dominance of the opportunistic polychaete, Paraprionospiopatiens was all pervasive just after Phyan, resulting in poor diversity and evenness values. In the outer stations, diverse feeding modes present prior to the cyclone were replaced by microphagous feeders post the disturbance. However, the study also observed complete recovery as substantiated by the improvement inpolychaete density, diversity indices and re-instatement of multiple feeding guilds in affected areas. This resilience of the coastal waters off Malvan is attributed to its marine protected status, implying that reduced human interference aided rapid revival of damaged ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing rainfall patterns have significant effect on water resources, agriculture output in many countries, especially the country like India where the economy depends on rain-fed agriculture. Rainfall over India has large spatial as well as temporal variability. To understand the variability in rainfall, spatial-temporal analyses of rainfall have been studied by using 107 (1901-2007) years of daily gridded India Meteorological Department (IMD) rainfall datasets. Further, the validation of IMD precipitation data is carried out with different observational and different reanalysis datasets during the period from 1989 to 2007. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project data shows similar features as that of IMD with high degree of comparison, whereas Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation data show similar features but with large differences, especially over northwest, west coast and western Himalayas. Spatially, large deviation is observed in the interior peninsula during the monsoon season with National Aeronautics Space Administration-Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (NASA-MERRA), pre-monsoon with Japanese 25 years Re Analysis (JRA-25), and post-monsoon with climate forecast system reanalysis (CFSR) reanalysis datasets. Among the reanalysis datasets, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) shows good comparison followed by CFSR, NASA-MERRA, and JRA-25. Further, for the first time, with high resolution and long-term IMD data, the spatial distribution of trends is estimated using robust regression analysis technique on the annual and seasonal rainfall data with respect to different regions of India. Significant positive and negative trends are noticed in the whole time series of data during the monsoon season. The northeast and west coast of the Indian region shows significant positive trends and negative trends over western Himalayas and north central Indian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, analysis of the long term climatology, variability and trends in the daily rainfall events of ≥5 mm [or daily rainfall (DR) events] during the southwest monsoon season (June-September) over four regions of India; south central India (SCI), north central India (NCI), northeast India (NEI) and west coast (WC) have been presented. For this purpose, a new high spatial resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) daily gridded rainfall data set covering 110 years (1901-2010) over the Indian main land has been used. The association of monsoon low pressure systems (LPSs) with the DR events of various intensities has also been examined. Major portion of the rainfall over these regions during the season was received in the form of medium rainfall (≥5-100 mm) or moderate rainfall (MR) events. The mean seasonal cycle of the daily frequency of heavy rainfall (HR) (≥100-150 mm) or HR events and very heavy rainfall (VHR) (≥150 mm) or VHR events over each of the four regions showed peak at different parts of the season. The peak in the mean daily HR and VHR events occurred during middle of July to middle of August over SCI, during late part of June to early part of July over NCI, during middle of June to early July over NEI, and during late June to middle July over WC. Significant long term trends in the frequency and intensity of the DR events were observed in all the four geographical regions. Whereas the intensity of the DR events over all the four regions showed significant positive trends during the second half and the total period, the signs and magnitude of the long term trends in the frequency of the various categories of DR events during the total period and its two halves differed from the region to the region. The trend analysis revealed increased disaster potential for instant flooding over SCI and NCI during the recent years due to significant increasing trends in the frequency (areal coverage) and intensity of the HR and VHR events during the recent half of the data period. However, there is increased disaster potential over NEI and WC due to the increasing trends in the intensity of the rainfall events. There is strong association between the LPS days and the DR events in both the spatial and temporal scales. In all the four regions, the contributions to the total MR events by the LPS days were nearly equal. On the other hand, there was relatively large regional difference in the number of combined HR and VHR events associated with LPS days particularly that associated with monsoon depression (LPS stronger than monsoon depression) days. The possible reasons for the same have also been discussed. The increasing trend in the monsoon low (low pressure) days post 1970s is the primary reason for the observed significant increasing trends in the HR and VHR events over SCI and NCI and decreasing trend in HR events over NEI during the recent half (1956-2010). This is in spite of the decreasing trend in the MD days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water resources in India are projected to face severe climate-induced stress. In the North-Eastern Hill region, where lifestyles are closely connected to nature, this holds great implications for human development. While scientific knowledge regarding climate change and water is growing at global and regional scales, an equally diverse body of knowledge on the human dimensions of the same at local levels is weak. This article attempts to bridge this knowledge gap by presenting micro-level evidence on the gendered impact of increasing water stress and the innovative gendered local adaptive strategies in this region. It urges for the need to re-think on adaptation planning, basing it on local templates for greater sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study evaluated the potential distribution of the potato tuber moth. This species severely impacts global potato production, especially in China and India, which have the world's largest potato production. We developed two indices considering host plant availability and production in addition to climatic suitability, which was simulated using the CLIMEX model. Thus, three different indices were used to project potential distribution of the potato tuber moth under a climate change scenario: (1) climatic suitability (ecoclimatic index (EI)) (EIM), (2) climatic suitability combined with host plant availability (EIN1), and (3) climatic suitability combined with host plant production (EIN2). Under the current climate, EIM was high in southern India and central to southern China, while EIN1 and EIN2 were approximately 38% and 20% lower than EIM, respectively. Under the Special Report on Emissions Scenario A1B, the potato tuber moth would probably not occur in India, but its distribution could be extended to the north, reaching N47°. The areas with the highest climatic suitability by potato tuber moth based on three indices were Sichuan and Karnataka in response to climate change. These areas require adequate pest control, such as prevention of spread through transport of potato seed or by using cold storage facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]