Average temperature rising during monsoon for past two decades, says government

New Delhi: The average temperature during the monsoon season has been increasing over the past two decades in India which has led to a rise in severe weather events, the Lok Sabha was told on Tuesday.

In a written reply, Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh said it was reported that the farming activities were delayed due to the change in the rainfall pattern this year.

"It is a fact that the annual temperature is increasing globally and the impact of the same is reflected in the increase in severe weather occurrence in various parts of the globe, including India," Singh said.

According to data shared by Singh, the all India mean temperature was 27.9 degrees Celsius in 2001 and had settled at 28.4 degrees Celsius in 2021. The All India Mean Temperature had recorded a high of 28.6 degrees Celsius in 2019.

In reply to a separate question, Singh said a recent climate assessment report of the Ministry of Earth Sciences revealed that the tropical Indian Ocean was warming rapidly over the recent decades.

"The average basin-wide sea surface temperature (SST) is warming at a rate of 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade during 1951-2015. During the same period, globally averaged SST warmed at a rate of approximately 0.11 degrees Celsius," Singh said.

"Owing to this rapid warming, the sea level in the Indian Ocean was observed to be rising at a rate of 1.06-1.75 mm per year during the last century (1874-2004) and approximately 3.3 mm per year in the recent decades (1993-2015), which is in a similar range of the mean sea level rise," the minister said.