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Trend of Climatic Components in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal: Evidence from Jalpaiguri District During the Last Century (1901–2000)

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Climate Change Adaptation, Risk Management and Sustainable Practices in the Himalaya

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Abstract

The monsoonal rainfall in North-East India, including the study region (Jalpaiguri district, located in the eastern Himalayan foothills), is decreasing, and heavy precipitation event days have been increasing. In this study, different climatic components, such as average monthly minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, and wet days’ frequency of Jalpaiguri district over a century (1901–2000), have been investigated in order to figure out the changing pattern of climate. For robust interpretation, the Mann-Kendall trend and Sen’s slope statistical methods were applied for trend analysis of each climatic component. At the same time, a hundred-year temperature anomalies (average, minimum, maximum) have also been calculated. The linear trend of the annual average temperature anomaly in Jalpaiguri has indicated that the temperature anomaly was increased by about 0.006 °C/year. It was highest in 1999 (+1.2 °C); simultaneously, the temperature has risen significantly by 0.01 °C in February and November in the last century. The Mann-Kendall test reveals a significant drop in the annual rainfall by 0.93 mm in June, followed by 0.18 mm in August during the last century (1901–2000). In 1955, July received a record-breaking rainfall (1105.93 mm), the highest monthly rainfall in the last century.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Recent changes in the earth’s surface climate can also be attributed to human activities, including deforestation, shifting land uses, and expanding industry. Human effects have been the primary discernible force driving climate change in recent years, by interfering with the energy fluxes that occur naturally through modifications to the composition of the atmosphere, people primarily affect the global climate.

  2. 2.

    At the global level, as the earth’s temperature is rising, nearly one-third of the earth’s population is under heat stress. The death rate due to heat wave has been on raising trend. By 2100, about 4 billion people will be at risk due to heat exposure, which will affect the global productive days (−2.2%) and indicates $2.4 trillion in economic losses. The construction workers, older, overweight, and poor people risk will increase 13 times and 35 times, respectively (Pennisi, 2020).

  3. 3.

    It has been evident (through changing magnitude and acceleration) that the Eastern Himalayas are a hotspot and three times higher prone to glacial lake outburst than in any other Himalayan region, which emblematise the climatological change in recent past in this region (Veh et al., 2019). The ice loss is consistent and it is found that the average rate of ice loss become double during 2000–2016 in contrast to 1975–2000 (Maurer et al., 2019).

  4. 4.

    India is divided into 36 homogenous monsoon climatic subregion; “sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim” is one of them in north-east India (IMD, 2017).

  5. 5.

    The mentioned rainfall and temperature of Jalpaiguri is 100-year average from 1901 to 2000.

  6. 6.

    Climate-induced disasters like flood and drought are two prime reasons for rural vulnerabilities, for example, 2017 flood in the northern part of West Bengal (including whole sub-Himalayan region) due to heavy rain over a week damaged 2,93,770.790 hectare of cropped area mainly paddy crop, and a total of 44,21,996 population have affected (West Bengal Disaster Management Report, 2017).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fellow (ISCF) at National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India

    Manoranjan Ghosh

  2. Doctoral Fellow (UGC-SRF) at Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Rakhohori Bag

Authors
  1. Manoranjan Ghosh
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  2. Rakhohori Bag
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Sanjeev Sharma

  2. G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, Almora, Uttarakhand, India

    Jagdish Chandra Kuniyal

  3. Department of Geography, School of Environment and Earth Sciences, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, Punjab, India

    Pritam Chand

  4. Department of Environmental Studies, PGDAV College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Pardeep Singh

Annexure 1

Annexure 1

Temperature and precipitation changes in the Himalayas. (a) Annual and season trends of temperature (°C/year). (b) Annual and season trends of precipitation (mm/year) shown in the bar graph in different eco-regions (Shrestha et al., 2012)

2 color-contoured area graphs. It plots 13 bar graphs for the 13 areas, W H S C F, T D S G, H S B F, E H S C F, B V S E F, E H B F, N T T F, N H S C F, E H A S M, W H A S M, H S P F, N H A S M, and W H B F. It plots 5 bars for annual, spring, summer, fall, and winter.

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Ghosh, M., Bag, R. (2023). Trend of Climatic Components in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal: Evidence from Jalpaiguri District During the Last Century (1901–2000). In: Sharma, S., Kuniyal, J.C., Chand, P., Singh, P. (eds) Climate Change Adaptation, Risk Management and Sustainable Practices in the Himalaya. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24659-3_2

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