Paper Title: Multimodel Ensemble–Based Drought Characterization over India for 21st Century

Integrated Drought Management, Volume 2

Vivek Gupta, & Manoj Kumar Jain.

This study presents projected drought scenarios for the years 2020–2100 over India generated using data from nine different global climate models (GCMs) under representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 using the Standardized Precipitation Index at a 12-month timescale (SPI-12). Principle component analysis–based unsupervised clustering has been used to obtain the homogeneous drought classes. Trend analysis was performed using the Mann–Kendall nonparametric test, and spatial variation of the magnitude of temporal trends for severity, duration, magnitude, and interval was analyzed using the Sen's slope approach. Periodicity analysis on SPI-12 of monsoon months was also performed using the Fourier transform approach. The results of this study suggest that drought risk may decrease in India in the 21st century under RCP 8.5. The periodicity analysis indicates interannual periodicities influencing monsoon months to be distributed uniformly across all clusters of the Indian subcontinent with an average cycle of 2.3 years dominating the country.