Impacts of the agricultural Green Revolution–induced land use changes on air temperatures in India

Abstract

[1] India has one of the most intensive and spatially extensive irrigation systems in the world developed during the1960s under the agricultural Green Revolution (GR). Irrigated landscapes can alter the regional surface energy balance and its associated temperature, humidity, and climate features. The main objective of this study is to determine the impacts of increased irrigation on long-term temperature trends. An analysis of the monthly climatological surface data sets at the regional level over India showed that agriculture and irrigation can substantially reduce the air temperature over different regions during the growing season. The processes associated with agriculture and irrigation-induced feedback are further diagnosed using a column radiation-boundary layer model coupled to a detailed land surface/hydrology scheme, and 3-D simulations using a Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. Both the modeling and observational analysis provide evidence that during the growing season, irrigation and agricultural activity are significantly modulating the surface temperatures over the Indian subcontinent. Therefore irrigation and agricultural impacts, along with land use change, and aerosol feedbacks need to be considered in regional and global modeling studies for climate change assessments.

Impacts of land use land cover on temperature trends over the continental United States: assessment using the North American Regional Reanalysis

“…These results are consistent with a number of studies that show that agricultural areas are often associated with negative trends in irrigated areas (e.g. Christy et al, 2006;Mahmood et al, 2006;Roy et al, 2007;Lobell and Bonfils, 2008) as well as in rainfed croplands (McPherson et al, 2004).…”

“…Consequently, attention has been increasingly given to the impact of LULC change on climate. For example, it has been reported that land use changes due to agriculture lead to decreased surface temperatures (Mahmood et al, 2006;Roy et al, 2007;Lobell and Bonfils, 2008). LULC change can significantly influence climatological variables such as maximum, minimum and diurnal temperature range (Gallo et al, 1996;Hale et al, 2006Hale et al, , 2008.…”

“…Recent investigations have also shown that climate forcing from land use/land cover (LULC) change also significantly impacts temperature trends (e.g. Bonan, 1997;Gallo et al, 1999;Chase et al, 2000;Feddema et al, 2005;Christy et al, 2006, Roy et al, 2007Wichansky et al, 2008). Some studies suggest that new metrics should be considered for characterizing climate changes (e.g.…”

Spatial and temporal analysis of thunderstorm and rainfall activity over India

“…The plausible cause for these negative CC values is an increase in rainfall activity by warm monsoon clouds (Kandalgaonkar et al, 2005). They also indicate a lower ocean-continent thermal contrast that motivates a greater entrance of humidity, therefore the occurrence of convective rain during the monsoon season (Roy et al 2007). In addition, an increase of accumulated daily rainfall at the beginning and end of the monsoon season has been observed (Fig.…”

Long Term Temperature Trends at Major, Medium, Small Cities and Hill Stations in India during the Period 1901-2013

“…From the analysis, it is seen that the urbanization effects on temperature is not uniform at all the stations. It may be due to location of stations, spatial temperature variability, aerosol optical depth over that region as well as agricultural cropping patterns [24]. In the recent period, both maximum and minimum temperatures show a significant increasing trend at 5 stations, but the stations at which both temperatures show a significant increasing trend are very few (2 stations) and they are located in Southern part of India.…”