Climate Of India: Past decade (2001-2010/ 2011-2020) was the warmest decade on record

New Delhi, 5 January 2020: The 2020 annual mean land surface air temperature for the country was +0.29⁰C above the 1981-2010 period average, thus making the year 2020 as the eighth warmest year on record since 1901 (Fig. 1).The five warmest years on record in order were: 2016 (+0.71⁰C), 2009 (+0.55⁰C), 2017 (+0.541⁰C), 2010 (+0.539⁰C), and 2015 (+0.42⁰C). It may be mentioned that 12 out of 15 warmest years were during the recent fifteen years (2006-2020).Past decade (2001-2010/ 2011-2020) was also the warmest decade on record with anomalies of 0.23⁰C /0.34⁰C.The country averaged annual mean temperature during 1901-2020 showed an increasing trend of 0.62⁰C/100 years (Fig.1) with significant increasing trend in maximum temperature (0.99⁰C/100 years) and relatively lower increasing trend (0.24⁰C/100 years) in minimum temperature.

The country averaged seasonal mean temperatures were also above the average during all the seasons except pre-monsoon season. The country averaged mean monthly temperatures were warmer than the normal during all the months of the year except March and June.

The mean temperatures exceeded the normal during September (by 0.72⁰C, warmest since 1901), August (by 0.58⁰C, second warmest), October (by 0.94⁰C, third warmest), July (by 0.56⁰C, fifth warmest), and December (by 0.39⁰C, seventh warmest).