Analysis of temperature variability and trends over Tripura

Abstract

Attempts have been made to study the temporal variations and trends in monthly, seasonal and annual temperature over two stations - Agartala and Kailashahar in Tripura, India for the period 1969 to 2014. Analysis has been carried for four temperature indices, namely - minimum temperature (T_min), maximum temperature (T_max), mean temperature (T_mean) and diurnal temperature range (DTR). Non-parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) test was used to detect the trends and the magnitude of the trends were determined with Sen’s estimator of slope. The analysis of the temperature data revealed significant increasing trends in T_min, T_max and T_mean variables at both the stations on annual scale, while decreasing trend in DTR was significant over Agartala only. On the seasonal scale, the increasing (decreasing) trends were observed in T_min, T_max and T_mean (DTR) temperature indices in all the four seasons - winter, pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon except non-significant decreasing trend in T_max in winter season over Agatala. On the monthly scale, significant rising trends in T_min, T_max and T_mean were observed in the most of the months and significant decreasing trend in DTR was found only in the months of January and December.