The study titled 'Identifying the climate zones shifts of Indian meteorological subdivisions: insights from historical records' was made public on Friday. (File photo)

Large parts of North India have turned hotter and drier over the last seven decades, while peninsular India has become wetter, according to a new study published in the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) peer-reviewed journal Mausam.

The study titled ‘Identifying the climate zones shifts of Indian meteorological subdivisions: insights from historical records’ was made public on Friday.

It redraws India’s climate map using IMD data for successive 30-year climatological periods from 1951-1980 to 1991-2020.

The analysis focused on four major climate zones — hot semi-arid (hot with low rainfall), tropical savannah (warm round the year with a long dry season), tropical monsoon (wettest with heavy seasonal rain) and temperate (hot summers and mild, dry winters).

In Northwest India, the study found a sharp expansion of the hot semi-arid…