The climate of India consists of a wide range of weather conditions across a vast geographic scale and varied topography. Based on the Köppen system, India hosts six major climatic sub types, ranging from arid deserts in the west, alpine tundra and glaciers in the north, and humid tropical regions supporting rain forests in the southwest and the island territories. Many regions have starkly different microclimates, making it one of the most climatically diverse countries in the world. The country's meteorological department follows the international standard of four seasons with some local adjustments: winter (December to February), summer (March to May), monsoon or rainy season (June to September), and a post-monsoon period (October and November).
India's geography and geology are climatically pivotal: the Thar Desert in the northwest and the Himalayas in the north work in tandem to create a culturally and economically important monsoonal regime. As Earth's highest and most massive mountain range, the Himalayas bar the influx of frigid katabatic winds from the icy Tibetan Plateau and northerly Central Asia. Most of North India is thus kept warm or is only mildly chilly or cold during winter; the same thermal dam keeps most regions in India hot in summer. Climate in South India is generally warmer, and more humid due to its coastlines.
Though the Tropic of Cancer—the boundary that is between the tropics and subtropics—passes through the middle of India, the bulk of the country can be regarded as climatically tropical. As in much of the tropics, monsoonal and other weather patterns in India can be strongly variable: epochal droughts, heat waves, floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters are sporadic, but have displaced or ended millions of human lives. Such climatic events are likely to change in frequency and severity as a consequence of human-induced climate change. Ongoing and future vegetative changes, sea level rise and inundation of India's low-lying coastal areas are also attributed to global warming.
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North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central Asia. The term North India has varying definitions. The Ministry of Home Affairs in its Northern Zonal Council Administrative division included the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan and Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent, generally referring to the coastline of Western coast of India from Konkan to Kanyakumari. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of South India including coastal part of Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Kuttanad, which is the point of least elevation in India, lies on the Malabar Coast. Kuttanad, also known as The Rice Bowl of Kerala, has the lowest altitude in India, and is one of the few places in the world where cultivation takes place below sea level.
Dehradun (ˌdɛrəˈduːn), also known as Dehra Doon, is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly holding its winter sessions in the city as its winter capital. Part of the Garhwal region, and housing the headquarters of its Divisional Commissioner.
Energy piles represent an innovative technology that can help provide sustainable geothermal heating or cooling energy for thermal conditioning purposes. In hot-dominated climates, the interest is to inject heat in the ground and extract energy for space-c ...
Short-duration extreme rainfall events are the main trigger of flash and pluvial floods in cities. Depending on the local climate zone and urban fabric that affect meteorological variables such as air temperature, humidity, and aerosol concentration, the b ...
Excessive heat in cities exacerbated by urban heat islands can negatively impact human health, building energy consumption, and urban ecosystems. Increasing urban greenery has often been proposed as an attractive mitigation strategy as vegetation can reduc ...