India Meteorological Department has declared that 2010 was the warmest year since 1901.
According to the department, the annual mean temperature averaged over the country as a whole was 25.8023°C last year. This translates to an increase of 0.93°C over the average for the 30-year period from 1961-1990.
The previous record was achieved in 2009, when the annual mean temperature averaged over the country in its entirety was 25.7876°C.
Releasing the annual climate summary for the country for 2010 on Thursday, IMD Director-General Ajit Tyagi said an analysis showed that the mean annual temperatures were generally above normal throughout the country during the year, with the departure from the normal being more pronounced in north and central India.
The departures from the normal were more than 1°C over most parts of northern and central India, while they were between 0°C and 1°C over the rest of the country.
More significantly, the temperatures were generally above normal both in terms of maximum [day] temperature and minimum [night] temperature.
Month-wise, however, records were broken only thrice — in March, April and November. The mean monthly temperature over the country as a whole for March was 2.27°C above the 1961-90 average, 2.02°C for April and 1.17°C for November.
An analysis as part of the annual climate summary of decadal variations in temperatures shows that they had gone up significantly: the average temperature for 2001-10 was 0.6°C above that for 1901-10. But, there is no discernible pattern in year-wise temperatures. After 2010 and 2009, the third warmest year was 2002, the fourth 2006, fifth 2003, sixth 2007, the seventh 2004, the eighth 1998, the ninth 1941, the 10th 1999, the 11th 1958, the 12th 2001, the 13th 1987 and so on.
