Impacts of the agricultural Green Revolution-induced land use changes on air temperatures in India

India has one of the most intensive and spatially extensive irrigation systems in the world developed during the 1960s under the agricultural Green Revolution (GR). Irrigated landscapes can alter the regional surface energy balance and its associated temperature, humidity, and climate features. The main objective of this study is to determine the impacts of increased irrigation on long-term temperature trends. An analysis of the monthly climatological surface data sets at the regional level over India showed that agriculture and irrigation can substantially reduce the air temperature over different regions during the growing season. The processes associated with agriculture and irrigation-induced feedback are further diagnosed using a column radiation-boundary layer model coupled to a detailed land surface/ hydrology scheme, and 3-D simulations using a Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. Both the modeling and observational analysis provide evidence that during the growing season, irrigation and agricultural activity are significantly modulating the surface temperatures over the Indian subcontinent. Therefore irrigation and agricultural impacts, along with land use change, and aerosol feedbacks need to be considered in regional and global modeling studies for climate change assessments.