| Summary: | Any significant change in climate is known to have a significant impact on crop production and human resources, which are generally difficult to quantify. In the present study, two indices are defined: (i) refined growing season (GS) characteristics and (ii) transition period, based on the annual cycles of diurnal temperature extremes, to unravel any possible impact on these productive elements. Multi-dimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition, a nonlinear, non-stationary approach is used to extract the annual cycles of diurnal temperature extremes. Since the adverse impact is reportedly more critical over tropical regions, the Indian region is chosen as the study area, and 1° × 1° gridded daily minimum and daily maximum temperature data are used. Results reveal earlier onset and lengthening of GS, with notable spatial variations. Further, a drastic reduction in the transition (i.e. comfortable) period is observed over the warm humid regions, majorly due to the encroachment of summer days. On the contrary, over semi-arid regions, the transition period is found to be increasing, majorly due to the shortening of winter. The quantification of these changes may aid in implementing regional adaptation strategies related to the two productive elements.
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