Search

The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) has generated seasonal and extended range hindcast products for 1981–2008 and 2003–2016, respectively, using the IITM-Climate Forecast System (IITM-CFS) coupled model at various resolutions and configurations. Notably, our observational analysis suggests that for the 1981–2008 period, the tropical Indo-Pacific drivers, namely, the canonical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), ENSO Modoki, and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). are significantly associated with the observed Kharif rice production (KRP) of various rice-growing Indian states. In this paper, using the available hindcasts, we evaluate whether these state-of-the-art retrospective forecasts capture the relationship of the KRP of multiple states with the local rainfall as well as the tropical Indo-Pacific drivers, namely, the canonical ENSO, ENSO Modoki, and the IOD. Using techniques of anomaly correlation, partial correlation, and pattern correlation, we surmise that the IITM-CFS successfully simulate the observed association of the tropical Indo-Pacific drivers with the local rainfall of many states during the summer monsoon. Significantly, the observed relationship of the local KRP with various climate drivers is predicted well for several Indian states such as United Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, and Bihar. The basis seems to be the model's ability to capture the teleconnections from the tropical Indo-Pacific drivers such as the IOD, canonical and Modoki ENSOs to the local climate, and consequently, the Kharif rice production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endowment of fertile Gangetic alluvial soil and abundant water resources, particularly groundwater resources altogether constitute core components for development of agriculture in Bihar. Efforts have been made in this paper to analyze factors responsible for changes in land use pattern, especially increase in current fallows, shrinking net sown area and shifting of land for non-agricultural purposes in the state. A larger concentration of current fallow lands was accounted for in Gaya, Patna, Purnea, Munger, Jehanabad and Kishanganj districts. The rainfall and road length have significant impact on the level of current fallows. Erratic monsoon and labour scarcity during the study period of present century resulted in accumulation of current fallow lands. It was further observed that the non-agricultural use of land was identified as the dominant factor for changes in common lands as it affected the current fallows negatively. It is a challenging task for policy makers to maximize the income of farmers from a continuously declining in net sown area, deteriorating climatic conditions as well as labour scarce conditions, thereby resulting in aggregation of current fallows. In order to boost the production and enhance farmer's income, it is necessary to discourage the rising tendency in current fallows or to bring current fallows under cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trends and variability in extreme temperature indices and its impact on rice-wheat productivity over two districts of Bihar, India, which is part of the middle Indo-Gangetic Basin. Mann-Kendall non-parametric test was employed for detection of trend and Sen slope was determined to quantify the magnitude of such trends. We have analyzed 10 extreme temperature indices for monthly and seasonally. The influence of extreme temperature indices on rice-wheat productivity was determined using correlation analysis. As far as Patna is concerned, if the number of cool days during September ≥10, the rice productivity will increase due to the availability of sufficient duration to fill up the grain. However, higher warm days during all the months except June will affect the productivity. A significant negative correlation was noticed between maximum value of minimum temperature during September and rice productivity. Highly significant positive correlation was noticed between number of cool days during September with rice productivity while it was highly significant negative correlation in the case of number of warm days during the same month. As far as Samastipur is concerned, a negative correlation was noticed between wheat productivity and maximum value of maximum temperature (TXx) during February, but not statistically significant. The higher temperature may affect the kernel weight and thereby yield. It is seen that a critical value of TXx ≥29.2 °C will be harmful to wheat crop during February. A significant positive correlation of number of cool nights with wheat productivity also supports the above relationship. The critical values of extreme temperature indices during rice and wheat growing months provide an indicator to assess the vulnerability of rice-wheat productivity to temperature for Patna and Samastipur districts and there is a need to prepare an adaptive strategy and also develop thermo-insensitive rice-wheat high yielding varieties suitable for this region to sustain rice-wheat productivity under projected climate change situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]