Analyses of maximum temperature data from 49 stations in Nepal for the period 1971-94 reveal warming trends after 1977 ranging from 0.06Њ to 0.12ЊC yr Ϫ1 in most of the Middle Mountain and Himalayan regions, while the Siwalik and Terai (southern plains) regions show warming trends less than 0.03ЊC yr Ϫ1. The subset of records (14 stations) extending back to the early 1960s suggests that the recent warming trends were preceded by similar widespread cooling trends. Distributions of seasonal and annual temperature trends show high rates of warming in the high-elevation regions of the country (Middle Mountains and Himalaya), while low warming or even cooling trends were found in the southern regions. This is attributed to the sensitivity of mountainous regions to climate changes. The seasonal temperature trends and spatial distribution of temperature trends also highlight the influence of monsoon circulation. The Kathmandu record, the longest in Nepal (1921-94), shows features similar to temperature trends in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting links between regional trends and global scale phenomena. However, the magnitudes of trends are much enhanced in the Kathmandu as well as in the all-Nepal records. The authors' analyses suggest that contributions of urbanization and local land use/cover changes to the all-Nepal record are minimal and that the all-Nepal record provides an accurate record of temperature variations across the entire region.

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Nepal's quake-driven landslide hazards Large earthquakes can trigger dangerous landslides across a wide geographic region. The 2015 M w 7.8 Gorhka earthquake near Kathmandu, Nepal, was no exception. Kargal et al. used remote observations to compile a massive catalog of triggered debris flows. The satellite-based observations came from a rapid response team assisting the disaster relief effort. Schwanghart et al. show that Kathmandu escaped the historically catastrophic landslides associated with earthquakes in 1100, 1255, and 1344 C.E. near Nepal's second largest city, Pokhara. These two studies underscore the importance of determining slope stability in mountainous, earthquake-prone regions. Science , this issue p. 10.1126/science.aac8353 ; see also p. 147

Precipitation records from 78 stations distributed across Nepal were analysed and all‐Nepal (1948–1994) and subregional records (1959–1994) were developed. The all‐Nepal and regional precipitation series showed significant variability on annual and decadal time scales. Distinct long‐term trends were not found in these precipitation records. The all‐Nepal record agrees well with the precipitation records from northern India, while it does not compare well with the all‐India precipitation record. The all‐Nepal monsoon record is highly correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) series. The exceptionally dry year of 1992 recorded in Nepal coincides with the elongated El Niño of 1992–1993 and the Mount Pinatubo eruption. A remarkable cooling in the region covering the Tibetan Plateau also occurred in 1992, suggesting that Pinatubo aerosol played a major role in the drought of that particular year in Nepal. In other years, the correlation between the precipitation record from Nepal and the temperature of the Tibetan Plateau is not significant, while a stronger correlation with temperature over the Indian Ocean and southern India exists. This provides further support for the strong relationship between the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and precipitation fluctuation in Nepal. The correlation is stronger between all‐Nepal monsoon precipitation and SOI averaged over seasons following the monsoon compared with seasons preceding the monsoon. Copyright © 2000 Royal Meteorological Society

Future hydrological extremes, such as floods and droughts, may pose serious threats for the livelihoods in the upstream domains of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra. For this reason, the impacts of climate change on future hydrological extremes is investigated in these river basins. We use a fully-distributed cryospheric-hydrological model to simulate current and future hydrological fluxes and force the model with an ensemble of 8 downscaled General Circulation Models (GCMs) that are selected from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The model is calibrated on observed daily discharge and geodetic mass balances. The climate forcing and the outputs of the hydrological model are used to evaluate future changes in climatic extremes, and hydrological extremes by focusing on high and low flows. The outcomes show an increase in the magnitude of climatic means and extremes towards the end of the 21st century where climatic extremes tend to increase stronger than climatic means. Future mean discharge and high flow conditions will very likely increase. These increases might mainly be the result of increasing precipitation extremes. To some extent temperature extremes might also contribute to increasing discharge extremes, although this is highly dependent on magnitude of change in temperature extremes. Low flow conditions may occur less frequently, although the uncertainties in low flow projections can be high. The results of this study may contribute to improved understanding on the implications of climate change for the occurrence of future hydrological extremes in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region.