Author's Personal Copy Review of Trend Detection Methods and Their Application to Detect Temperature Changes in India

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: s u m m a r y Present study performs the spatial and temporal trend analysis of annual, monthly and seasonal maximum and minimum temperatures (t max , t min) in India. Recent trends in annual, monthly, winter, pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon extreme temperatures (t max , t min) have been analyzed for three time slots viz. For this purpose, time series of extreme temperatures of India as a whole and seven homogeneous regions, viz. Western Himalaya (WH), Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), North Central (NC), East coast (EC), West coast (WC) and Interior Peninsula (IP) are considered. Rigorous trend detection analysis has been exercised using variety of non-parametric methods which consider the effect of serial correlation during analysis. During the last three decades minimum temperature trend is present in All India as well as in all temperature homogeneous regions of India either at annual or at any seasonal level (winter, pre-monsoon, monsoon, post-monsoon). Results agree with the earlier observation that the trend in minimum temperature is significant in the last three decades over India (Kothawale et al., 2010). Sequential MK test reveals that most of the trend both in maximum and minimum temperature began after 1970 either in annual or seasonal levels. A number of studies were partially concentrated for analyzing the impact of climate change and variability on different components of hydrological cycle. In the most recent studies it is observed that significant warming in the second half of the 20th century resulted in a drastic change in the hydrology of an agricultural based country like India. Magnitude and trend of warming of India during the last century over Indian continent is matching with the global condition (Pant and Rupa Kumar, 1997). Drastic change in the hydrological parameters such as precipitation, evaporation and streamflow is influencing the flow regimes substantially. Hydrologic variables (evaporation, precipitation, runoff etc.) are directly or indirectly dependent on atmospheric variables (pressure, humidity, temperature, precipitable water etc.). It is necessary to establish the relations between atmospheric and hydrological variables, which can provide useful insights into the possible changes in hydrology of a region and also can aid in decision-making in water resources management related issues. Among …