Hydrological Extremes in Western Himalayas-Trends and Their Physical Factors

Recent exacerbation of extreme precipitation events (EPEs) and related massive disasters in western Himalayas (WH) underpins the influence of climate change. Such events introduce significant losses to life, infrastructure, agriculture, in turn the country’s economy. This chapter provides an assessment of long-term (1979–2020) as well as recent changes (2000–2020) in precipitation extremes over WH for summer (JJAS) and winter (DJF) seasons. Different high-resolution multi-source climate datasets have been utilized to compute the spatiotemporal trends in intensity and frequency of EPEs. The hotspots of rising extremes over the region have been quantified using the percentile approach where daily precipitation exceeds the 95th percentile threshold at a given grid. The findings reveal geographically heterogeneous trends among different datasets; however, precipitation intensity and frequency show enhancement both spatially and temporally (though insignificant). For both seasons, dynamic and thermodynamic parameters highlight the role of increased air temperatures and, as a result, available moisture in the atmosphere, signifying the consequences of global warming. Rising precipitation extremes in summer are sustained by enhanced moisture supply combined with increased instability and updraft, due to orography, in the atmosphere whereas winter atmosphere is observing an increase in baroclinicity, available kinetic energy, vertical shear and instability, contributing to a rise in precipitation extremes.