Long term trends in the extreme rainfall events over India

Abstract

Rainfall and surface air temperature are the two key elements of climate that are commonly used as indicators of global climate change due to the availability of long time series of these elements from most parts of the world. Rainfall, a component of terrestrial hydrological cycle, determines the availability of water and the level of the soil moisture. During the last few decades, rainfall extremes have been found to be increasing around the world with distinct regional differences, and the increase is linked to the warming of the atmosphere which has taken place since pre-industrial times (IPCC 2007). Its immediate implication is the increased flood risk around the world. In India, there have been several studies on daily extreme rainfall events over the region based on station and grid point rainfall data (Sen Roy and Balling 2004; Joshi and Rajeevan 2006; Goswami et al. 2006; Rajeevan et al. 2008; Ghosh et al. 2009; Guhathakurta et al. 2011).