India’s climate in 2022: A snapshot

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) started keeping weather records in 1901. Since then, as an IMD press release on the Climate of India 2022 stated, the year 2022 has been the fifth warmest for India. The annual mean land surface air temperature averaged over India during 2022 was +0.510C above the long-term average (1981-2010 period). However, this is lower than the highest warming observed over India during 2016 and higher than the previous year 2021. The pre-monsoon period was exceptionally hot in 2022. The country averaged seasonal mean temperature was normal during the winter season while the pre-monsoon season, monsoon season and post-monsoon season were above normal.

The IMD press release highlights World Meteorological Department data that says global mean temperature in 2022 is currently estimated to be 1.15 ± 0.13 °C above the preindustrial (1850-1900) average, making the past eight years (2015-2022) the warmest on record. Despite La Niña conditions keeping global temperature low for the second consecutive year, 2022 is still most likely to be fifth or sixth warmest year on record.

The Indian Monsoon onset was earlier than normal and the withdrawal was later than normal this year. According to the IMD, the 2022 rainfall over the country as a whole was 108% of its Long Period Average (LPA) value based on the period 1971-2020. The winter season rainfall was 147% of its LPA, pre-monsoon season rainfall was 99% of its LPA, rainfall during the southwest monsoon season was 106 % of its LPA and rainfall during post monsoon season was 119% of its LPA.

During 2022, 15 cyclonic disturbances (three cyclonic storms and 12 depressions) formed over the north Indian Ocean against the normal of 11.2 based on data of 1965-2021. It included three cyclones, seven depressions formed over Bay of Bengal and three depressions over Arabian Sea and two land depressions. In addition to these, extreme weather events like extremely heavy rainfall, floods, landslide, lightning, thunderstorm, droughts etc., were also experienced in various parts of the country. Heavy rainfall, floods and landslides claimed over 830 lives across the country. Thunderstorms and lightning claimed more than 1280 lives. Other events like snowfall, cold waves, heat waves, dust storms, gales, and hailstorms also affected various parts of the country including loss of life, injury, loss of livestock and damage to crops and public and private property.

The IMD press release lists the five warmest years on record, in descending order were 2016 (+0.71°C), 2009(+0.55°C), 2017 (+0.541°C), 2010 (+0.539°C) and 2022 (+0.51°C). 11 out of the 15 warmest years were during the recent fifteen years (2008-2022). The past decade (2012-2021/ 2013-2022) was also the warmest decade on record. The country averaged annual mean temperature during 1901-2022 showed a significant increasing trend of 0.64°C /100 years while a significant increasing trend was observed in maximum temperature (1.0°C /100 years) and a relatively lower increasing trend (0.28°C /100 years) in minimum temperature.

Analysis released by the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) Tracker – a joint project by Climate Trends and Respirer Living Sciences that tracks India’s clean air programme and provides updates on it – shows that there has been only a “marginal improvement” in air quality in the country’s most polluted cities, as per a recent analysis. Delhi was the city with the most polluted air in 2022. Cities which had the least pollution levels in 2019 also witnessed an increase in levels of particulate matter last year. The NCAP Tracker’s latest analysis took into account data from Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) across 57 cities for which sufficient data was available with respect to PM10 levels, and 54 cities that had requisite data for PM2.5. This data collected between January 2019, when the programme was launched, until December 2022 was used.

To improve India’s urban air quality in this regard, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change launched the NCAP in January 2019. It lists city-specific action plans to achieve a 20-30% reduction in the levels of particulate matter by 2024, keeping 2017 as the base year. Initially, 102 cities were part of this programme and now that number has risen to 131. These cities are called non-attainment cities because they did not meet the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for the period of 2011-15 under the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP).