Effect of spatial correlation on regional trends in rain events over India

Abstract

The regional trends are evaluated in the frequency of various rain events using the daily gridded (1° × 1°) rainfall dataset for the time period 1901–2004, prepared by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). In terms of intensity, the events are classified as low, moderate, heavy and extreme heavy, while short and long spells are classified on the basis of duration of rainfall. The analytical (parametric) and the empirical (bootstrap) techniques were used to incorporate the impact of spatial correlation in regional trends. It is observed that, consideration of spatial correlation reduces the significance level of the trends and the effective number of grid points falling under each category. Especially, the noticeable cross-correlation have reduced the significance of the trends in moderate and long spell rain events to a large extent, while the significance of trends in the extreme heavy and short spell events is not highly affected because of small cross-correlation.