Changing conditions of temperature and precipitation in Malda District in the last century: Trends and Characteristics

In the prevailing realm of the scenario of global warming and human-induced climate change, researches dealing with changing trends and characteristics of weather and climate parameters have assumed greater attention. Amongst the climate parameters, the most significant include temperature and precipitation. This is because amongst all other climatic parameters, it is only the temperature and precipitation which have a direct implication on then human kind. A majority of researchers across the globe opine that in the last century, various anthropogenic reasons have resulted into increasing of the temperature of the earth to a considerable extent. So, the primary objective of the present study is to analyse the actual trend in the temperature and precipitation of the Malda District of the Indian State of West Bengal. The time period selected for the study is from 1901 – 2000. The raw data were collected from the website <a href="http://www.interwaterportal.com">www.interwaterportal.com</a>. The study attempts to ascertain whether there is any change in the long-term temperature and precipitation and also the decadal variation in temperature and precipitation in this area. Another objective of this paper is to determine the temperature-precipitation relationship. Linear regression technique was applied to understand the relationship and the trend of the relationship with respect to time. Also, the data were analysed in accordance with their normality in order to determine the erratic (if any) pattern of precipitation and temperature distributions. This was done by the Shapiro Wilk Test. One of the important findings of this study was that there was no significant statistical pattern in the temporal distribution of temperature and precipitation.