India warming slower than global average, NASA data shows

NASA temperature-change maps from 1980 to 2025 show India warming by less than 0.9°C over the past century, while the global average rose 1.4°C in just 50 years. Researchers at Harvard and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies call this anomaly a 'warming hole', a climate quirk not seen in other tropical monsoon regions like Southeast Asia or southern China.

Two leading theories exist. The first is that intensive groundwater-fed irrigation in northern India's wheat and rice belt draws heat off the land through evaporation, much like the US Midwest's 'Corn Belt'. The second is that aerosol pollution from traffic and industry reflects sunlight, masking global warming. Scientists warn that if either factor changes, for instance, if air quality improves, temperatures could spike rapidly, making today's already stifling heat unsurvivable for India's 1.5 billion people.

Dr Benjamin Cook of NASA says the pattern is unlikely to be mere statistical noise. The Harvard white paper points to weak warming and even cooling in northern India during the dry winter as the main driver.