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

In the Karakoram region, temperature decreased significantly during JJA. Also, precipita- tion increased significantly in this region except a significant decrease in Gilgit during DJF. MK test suggested increasing trend in precipitation and decreasing trend in maximum and minimum temperature during 1962–1990 and closely in line with Karakoram Anomaly. How- ever, precipitation (in DJF) and temperature (in JJA) have decreasing and increasing trend, respectively, during the most recent period (2010–2019), which do not support the notion of Karakoram Anomaly. These findings suggested that the glacier may lose mass in future rather than gaining or stable conditions. Climate extremes have mixed trends over North Pakistan. For instance, summer days increased, and cold nights have mixed trend. Warm nights decreased except in western Karakoram. The key takeaways are: 1. A change is noted in the Climate (maximum, minimum temperature and precipitation) across the country during the analysis period. Fig 12. Station-wise climate extremes related to precipitation for each climatic zone and two independent time duration In Karakoram region. Each color has specific meaning and given below. Note: The colors represent different status for each extreme mentioned in these figures. Green color shows no changes. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626.g012 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 22 / 27