Time series analysis of observed maximum and minimum air temperature at four urban cities of India during 1951-2015

Abstract

A sixty - five year (1951-2015) long data for monthly minimum temperature (TMIN) and maximum temperature (TMAX), observed by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), is statistically analyzed at four urban stations namely Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai of India. A bimodal nature in seasonality is noticed for TMAX and TMIN at all locations. Two peaks for TMAX and TMIN are observed in May and September. Exceptionally, Mumbai shows TMAX peaks during May and November and Delhi shows TMIN peaks during June and September. Higher standard deviations (SD) for TMAX is noted at Delhi with a maximum in March (1.78 °C), while for Chennai, the SD for TMIN is lesser compared to other cities. Two different periods 1951-1980 (P1, the first half of the study period) and 1981-2015 (P2, the second half of the study period) were identified from the time series of both TMAX and TMIN. A higher increasing trend is observed during P2 than P1 in all the cities except in TMIN at Mumbai. The highest increasing trend (0.040 °C/year) is observed for TMIN in Mumbai during P1 time, but the trend is almost constant (0.001 °C/year) during P2 time. The highest increasing trend for TMIN at Mumbai is mainly contributed by the increasing trend in post-monsoon and winter months in P1. Surprisingly, in both P1 and P2, the trends are less during monsoon months for all the cities. A consistent 5-year (3-year) band is observed throughout the wavelet power spectrum at the coastal cities Bhubaneswar, Mumbai (Chennai). However, the 5-year signal is not consistent at Delhi and it is observed only during the year 1975-1980. The global wavelet power spectrum showed that TMIN at Chennai has less power (0.6 °C²) corresponding to 3-year signal and Mumbai has highest power (12 °C²) corresponding to the 5-year signal in comparison to other cities.