Significant increasing trend, changes in temperature observed in NE

Our Correspondent

Imphal, Sep. 20 (EMN):  Significant increasing trend and changes in temperature has been observed in north-eastern region, said Prof. Manju Mohan of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.

“The increase in minimum temperature has been witnessed over the northeastern region except Cherrapunji,” she said.

Mohan was speaking on topic “Impacts on micro-climatic conditions from changing land-use land-cover patterns-Relevance to Northeastern region” at the workshop in Imphal on Friday.

Prof. Mohan said seasonal trends of temperature and rainfall over Northeast during last century were analysed based on datas obtained from nine India Meteorological Department (IMD) stations of north- eastern region.

The two-day workshop on “Climate Change perspective in Manipur,” was organised by the Central Agricultural University (CAU), National Institute of Technology (NIT), Manipur and MU in association with Directorate of Environment, Manipur.

Urbanisation in the north-eastern states in the last 30 years tends to increase the night time temperature because of the urban heat island effect, she said.

Similarly, the maximum temperature for the IMD stations in the region shows generally increasing trend or no significant trend except Gangtok during all the four seasons and Agartala during pre-monsoon season shows deceasing trend, she said.

The rate of increase in maximum temperature is found to be higher over Imphal during monsoon season and over Cherrapunji in post-monsoon season, she said.

The possible reasons for all these changes could be because of deforestation and degradation of forest cover, increase in the population in the past half century may lead to increased anthropogenic heat over the populated areas and increase in the green house gas besides global warming, she observed.

Almost all the IMD stations in the region show either decreasing trend of rainfall or there is no significant trend except Guwahati during post monsoon season where it shows significant increasing trend.

Informing that there’s a decrease trend in the annual rainfall in the Brahamputra basin while increase in lower Northeast region, she said there is decrease in the annual number of rainy days across the NE region.

The workshop concluded with a panel discussion on “Human and Institutional Capacity Building on Climate Perspective in Manipur.”