Abstract
Recent studies reported an elevation dependent signal of warming in mountainous regions of the world including the Himalayas. Various mechanisms are proposed to link this phenomenon with other atmospheric variables. In the present study, long-term (1970–2099) trend of near-surface air temperature at different elevations in the Indian Himalayan region (IHR) is assessed from Regional Climate Model (REMO) simulations. This is done for four different seasons- winter, pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon – to detect any signal of elevation dependency in the rate of warming and its seasonal response. Our results show enhanced trends in temperature during post-monsoon and winter season at higher elevations, which is concurrent with increased trends in surface downwelling longwave radiation (DLR) at higher elevations. Further, the elevation dependency of other climatic variables like – soil moisture, surface snow amount, cloud fraction etc. are studied to understand the possible factors behind higher DLR trend at higher altitudes in specific seasons.
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Acknowledgements
APD acknowledges financial support by MoEFandCC under NMHS scheme. Authors also acknowledge the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) infrastructure and the Climate Data Portal at Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, India for provision of REMO data under CORDEX-SA.
Author Contributions
A.P.D. conceived the idea. A.P.D. and A.C. designed the study. D.K. did the major part of analysis and prepared the plots with ideas from A.P.D. All the three authors discussed and interpreted the results. A.P.D wrote the paper.
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Dimri, A.P., Choudhary, A., Kumar, D. (2020). Elevation Dependent Warming over Indian Himalayan Region. In: Dimri, A., Bookhagen, B., Stoffel, M., Yasunari, T. (eds) Himalayan Weather and Climate and their Impact on the Environment . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29684-1_9
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