Climate change in Bangladesh: A historical analysis of temperature and rainfall

The article provides an assessment of climate change and variability based on analysis of historical data of temperature andrainfall recorded at 34 meteorological stations located at seven regions in Bangladesh for the period of 1976-2008. Thetrend of variation of yearly average maximum temperature has been found to be increasing at a rate of 0.0186 degree C per year for yearly average minimum temperature. Analysis of monthly average maximumtemperature also showed increasing trend for all months except January and April. The increasing trend was particularlysignificant for May to September and February. Monthly average minimum temperature data also showed increasing trendsfor all months except January and November. Analysis of rainfall data showed that for a large majority of stations, the totalrainfall showed increasing trend for monsoon and post-monsoon seasons, while decreasing trend was observed for thewinter; pre-monsoon rainfall did not show any significant change. These observations are particularly significant in thecontext of Bangladesh where agriculture is heavily dependent on temperature and rainfall patterns