Assessing the changes in climate extremes over Karbi Anglong district of Assam, North-East India

The changes in the climate extremes are not only an important indicator of climate change but also their spatio-temporal pattern influences the occurrence of droughts, floods, soil erosion, landslides as well as the livelihoods of the human beings. Therefore the present study tries to investigate recent changes in climate extremes using eight indices developed by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices for the Karbi Anglong district of Assam situated in North-East India. This district has gone through several changes in the land use and land cover which is one of the significant factors for bringing changes in the regional climatic conditions. A non-parametric Mann–Kendall test, Modified Mann–Kendall test and Theil–Sen’s slope estimator are used to analyze the trends and trend magnitudes of the extreme indices of temperature and precipitation. The results show that there is an increase in the frequency of the warm days and nights, along with the presence of long dry spells, increasing extreme precipitation events with high intensity throughout the district for a period of 35 years. These changes in the climate extremes can have severe impacts on the availability of water resources which can affect the agricultural activities and reduce the availability of drinking water facilities for the tribal communities.