Climatic Variability and its Implications on Agricultural Productivity in Central Punjab

Enhanced greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic activities has resulted in climatic changes and their adverse impacts on agricultural productivity. Different regions of earth are experiencing climatic changes of varying magnitudes. To deal with the situation; there is a dire need of temporal analysis of climatic records to quantify the climatic changes and their likely impacts on agricultural productivity. In the present investigation, long term climatic records of central Punjab (Ludhiana) w.r.t. maximum temperature (T_max), minimum temperature (T_min), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS), sunshine hours (SSH) and open pan evaporation (PE) for a period of 47 years (1970 to 2016) were analysed on monthly, seasonal and annual basis. Analysis indicated significant annual increase in mean minimum temperature (@0.06°C), relative humidity (@1.3per cent) and decrease in wind speed (@0.67 km day⁻¹), sunshine hours (@0.03 hr day⁻¹) and open pan evaporation (@ 6.0 mm), whereas no significant trend has been observed in maximum temperature. Monthly variability in minimum temperature indicated the highest rate of increase (0.7°C per decade) during reproductive growth and maturity period of rabi (February and March) and Kharif (September and October) crops, which can have adverse effects on their productivity. Similarly increase in relative humidity and decrease in wind speed and sunshine hours can have serious implications on occurrence of insect-pests, rate of crop photosynthesis and yields indicating a dire need of exploring genetic and agronomic manipulations to counterbalance the adverse effects of climate change, minimize climatic risks and sustain agricultural productivity in the region.