Climate Variability at Ludhiana

Annual, seasonal, monthly and weekly variabilities in temperature and rainfall were analyzed from daily meteorological data of the past 30 years (1970–99) for Ludhiana located in the central plain agroclimatic zone of Punjab. Two distinct crop growth seasons of kharif (1 May to 31. October) and rabi (1 November to 30 April) were characterized for seasonal trends. The data were analyzed for normals, standard deviation (s.d.), coefficient of variation (c.v.), extreme values and five yearly moving averages. The analysis of the data revealed that the climate has changed slightly over the past 30 years. The minimum temperature has increased at the rate of 0.07°C per year during the past 30 years. However, the maximum temperature shows a slight decrease (at the rate of 0.02°C per year) during the same period. An increasing trend is also apparent in the annual as well as kharif Veason rainfall over the past 30 years.