Analysis of spatial patterns of trends in the frequency and intensity of Indian precipitation

Abstract

We assembled daily precipitation records for 129 weather stations spread all over India for the time period 1910 to 2000. Next we classified these stations into nine different regions according to the mean annual precipitation values for the different India meteorological sub-divisions. We conducted detailed analysis of total precipitation and the frequency of precipitation for each five-percentile interval for every region.  In general, our results show a decrease in precipitation throughout much of India with only the northwest showing an increase. Our analyses by precipitation percentile class intervals show that the most extreme events have become more frequent, particularly in the western half of the country. Our results are broadly consistent with the IPCC Scientific Assessment by Houghton et al. (2001) and other studies focusing on the spatial dimensions of Indian precipitation over time.