Temperature and Humidity Variability for Surat (coastal) city, India

Climate czars have brought up an ascent in mean surface temperature of 2°C above preindustrial levels will put the Earth in unsafe, uncharted region. Heat is less regarded as highly appreciable hazard for Indian Cities. Surat (coastal) city is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its ecological background and geographical location This paper reports summer (March to May) variability analysis of temperature and humidity for Surat city from 1985–2014 in general and 2010–2014 in particular. Data of Temperature and humidity for Surat city for the period of 2010–2014 (summer) were analyzed through SPSS version (16.0). Descriptive statistics and statistical difference using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey's multiple comparisons test were performed. Significance was set at P< 0.05. There were more frequent maximum temperature spikes identified in the last decade (2005–2014) as compared to previous two decades (1985–1994 and 1995–2004). Humidity increased from 54.9% to 60.4%. Maximum summer temperature increased to 1.6°C from 2011 to 2014. There were 37 hot days with the maximum temperature ≥40°C. Of 425, 384 are heat risk days having HI more than 41°C. Year 2010 had significantly higher mean summer temperature (F = 4.545, p 0.001) and HI (F = 18.243, p<0.0001) than the summer mean temperature and HI for the year 2011–2014 respectively. This analysis of temperature and humidity indicates that dangerous periods of extreme heat with more frequent maximum temperature spikes and rising humidity are likely to occur more frequently and suggesting the need for measures to reduce population vulnerability including health. This analysis will also useful in developing climate change adaptation strategy for Surat.