Seasonal and annual variation of Temperature and Precipitation in Phuntsholing

Bhutan is one of the sensitive regions to climate variation particularly to temperature precipitation changes in the World as there is indication of melting Glaciers in the northern part of country. In this study, trends in precipitation and temperature at annual, seasonal and monthly time scales for the periods of 1996-2014 were examined for the Phunstholing which is located near the Indian Boarder. Nonparametric tests (such as Mann-Kendall and Sen’s Slope) to determine climatic trends. In contrast, seasons represent slight precipitation increase (which are not statistically significant) annually, spring and autumn. Temperature data showed slight increase seasonally like spring and summer, even though results are not statistically significant for annually 1996-2014. The temperature data for summer months represent statistically significant increasing trends during the last 18 years. The main objective of this study is to observe the temperature and rainfall trend so far in Phuntsholing .Mann-Kendall’s (MK) nonparametric test and Sen’s slope estimation techniques were used to quantify the overall statistical significance of the results.