Climate change and spatio-temporal trend analysis of climate extremes in the homogeneous climatic zones of Pakistan during 1962-2019

2010–2019, respectively. Table 6 shows a comparison among three decades (1991–1999, 2000–2009, 2010–2019) using mMK test for precipitation. During 1991–1999, precipita- tion at Gilgit and Bunji increased while at Gopis and Skardu the trend decreased in DJF. On the contrary, the trend during 2000–2009 remained increasing. The trend changed again and decreased during 2010–2019 except Gopis with an insignificant increasing Fig 10. Probability density function of number of frost days (FD0) for the duration of 1991–2019 and 1962–1990 in each climate zone. Green and red color represent 1962–1990 and 1991–2019, respectively. On x-axis the number of days and on y-axis the density of FD0 is given. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626.g010 Table 4. Test of significance of the changes between 1991–2019 and 1962–1990 about average temperature and precipitation for all seasons and meteorological stations situated in the Karakoram regions. Variable Season Stations Astore Bunji Chilas Darosh Gilgit Gupis Skardu Difference of Average Temperature between 1991– 2019 and 1962– 1990 DJF 0.5082��� 0.5404��� -0.5618��� 0.7148��� 0.8567��� -0.1942��� 0.9677��� MAM 0.6780��� 0.5298��� -0.1238 0.6121��� 0.7384��� -0.0823 0.7679��� JJA -0.2891��� -0.9248��� -0.1220�� -0.0137 -0.4890��� -1.4199��� -0.2753��� SON 0.3906��� -0.3328��� -0.2666�� 0.5326��� 0.1510 -0.0157 0.0041 Overall 0.3208�� -0.0489 -0.2671�� 0.4600��� 0.3121�� -0.4303��� 0.3642�� Precipitation DJF 0.2720��� 0.1299��� 0.1980��� 0.1877�� -0.2388��� 0.1456��� 0.2984���

MAM -0.1176 -0.0347 0.0705 -0.3605��� -0.1836��� 0.5083��� 0.0513 JJA 0.1502��� 0.1719��� -0.2282�� 0.03797 -0.3112�� 0.3367��� 0.0850��� SON -0.0786 0.0604��� 0.0024 0.1001 -0.0727� 0.1046�� -0.3861�� Overall 0.0558 0.0817�� 0.0098 -0.0099 -0.2017�� 0.2749��� 0.0119 Note: Where “���”, “��” and “�” indicate significance of the test at 1%, 5% and 10% level of significance. DJF = December, January, February; MAM = March, April, May; JJA = June, July, August; SON = September, October, November. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626.t004 PLOS ONE Climate change and extremes analysis using observed data (1962-2019) over Pakistan PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626 July 27, 2022 16 / 27