Geospatial data analysis using FOSS4G - A case study for time series climatic data analysis using MapWindow

Study of climatic condition has been an active c h a l l e n g i n g research area in scientific community. During last decade the concern of global warming has attracted attention not only of the scientists but also of common people. In the current scenario each and every individual is concerned about the changing climatic conditions and interested in knowing daily weather conditions to understand the issue in better way. There are various agencies around the world which provide daily weather updates. In India, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) provides climate data and keeps an archive of historical climate data for Indian region. In the current study a software solution i.e. Bhu-Ritu has been developed using the archived climate data from IMD for the study of climatic pattern for the Indian region. The software utilizes the time series data published by IMD on rainfall and temperature from 1971 to 2005. The information provided by the software can be used for various climate-related studies in a very user friendly way. The application is capable of producing an animated display of the climatic trend from year 1971 to year 2005. It also allows a user to extract information pertaining to any area of interest. The software is the first of its kind to utilize the Indian Metrological Data model in a GIS domain. The outputs can be obtained in both spatial as well as non‐ spatial form as per the user query and requirement. Keywords-component; FOSS, metrological, climate, temperature, rainfall, graphs