Climatic vulnerabilities at Raipur district for Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Annual and seasonal variability’s in maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall were analyzed from historical daily meteorological data for Raipur (1971-2013). Two distinct crop growth seasons of Kharif (1 May to 31 October) and rabi (1 November to 30 April) were characterized for seasonal trends. The analysis of the data revealed that the climate has changed slightly over the past three decades. Both annual as well as seasonal maximum and minimum temperatures exhibited small standard deviation and coefficient of variation indicating minor variations in temperatures. The maximum temperature has remained near normal over the past three decades as the annual and kharif season maximum temperature revealed a slight decreasing trend while the rabi season maximum temperature revealed a slight increasing trend. On the other hand, the annual Kharif and rabi minimum temperature have increased significantly at the rate of 0.02 0C /year. The annual as well as seasonal rainfall exhibited high standard deviation and coefficient of variation indicating large variation in rainfall. The five yearly moving average trends in annual rainfall indicated an overall increase of about 3.8 mm/ year which was mainly due to an increase in kharif season rainfall (3.5 mm/ year) while the rabi season rainfall has remained nearly stable.