Variability in Heat Stress and Heat Wave Over the Indian Subcontinent
Abstract
India, with 1.32 billion people is the second most populous country in the world with considerably high levels of population density. Previous research shows global temperatures continue to increase causing in increased heat stress and Heat waves affecting the communities and causing extensive damage to crops and agro-rural economy. SWAT data of the NCEP over the 36-year from 1979 to 2014 are used to access the long term variability of heat stress and heat wave.
The results indicate, more than 150 days a year, the Eastern costal region of India have significantly higher no of peak heat stress days (>120 OF) as compared to 100 days in other part of the country leaving the hill states of India where Heat Stress are below 20 days. This may be due to westerly wind from Bay of Bengal drawing heat and moisture to land mass.The heat stress has increased most in north eastern region, more the 4 OF, as compared to rest of the country since 1979 to 2014 which can be a result of increased humidity and solar insolation. The country has witnessed an average of 4 to 6 heat wave days a year over the region but few states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and Haryana have witnessed more than 8 days a year where, relative humidity has gone up due to increased precipitation causing increased heated days. The analysis shows that high percentage of land mass are venerable to the increased heat stress, although more detailed studies considering the spatial and temporal distribution of population is needed to be done for the future scenarios. This work can be used as a guideline for the next steps in detailed studies on mitigation plan and decision making.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGH23B1102K
- Keywords:
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- 0493 Urban systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1942 Machine learning;
- INFORMATICSDE: 4329 Sustainable development;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 6334 Regional planning;
- POLICY SCIENCES