Richa Sharma By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: It is common knowledge that climate change has had an impact on the Himalayas and the oceans in India, and now a study by scientists from the Ministry of Earth Sciences have found evidence of ground surface warming in peninsular India over the decades.

Analysis of borehole temperature provides information about regional climate change over a few centuries. Data from 146 borehole sites in the crystalline terrain of peninsular India were used to reconstruct surface ground temperature history.

The great majority of borehole sites that extend down to 200 metres and 300 metres in depth revealed rise in core temperature. Depths of the boreholes ranged from 150 to 1,522 metres.

"Overall, 88 per cent of boreholes indicate predominant ground surface warming in peninsular India during the past three centuries," found the study. Peninsular India consists of states in Southern India and east India.

"The profiles show temperature anomalies in the top few hundred metres that is consistent with changing surface temperature over the past two-three centuries," it further said.

Analysis of individual profiles for change in temperature reveals predominant surface ground warming in peninsular India with a mean change of nearly 1 degree Celsius for 129 years.

The study has been jointly done by Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory, Karad, CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad and Department of Geophysics, IIT (Indian School of Mines).

Borehole temperature-depth profiles, down to a few hundred metres, provide a direct measure of changing surface ground temperature averaged over a much longer period.

A recent NASA report has found that 17 of 18 warmest years in 136-year-record have occurred since 2001 and 2016 was ranked as the warmest on record.