Agriculture is the foundation for humanity’s basic needs, and it has been satisfying the food, nutrition and livelihood requirements of the ever-growing population for a long time. However, global food security threatened by climate change is one of the most important challenges in the 21st century – supplying sufficient food for the increasing population while sustaining the already stressed natural resources and environment. Weather is foremost important input in agriculture. Climate influences all components of crop production including cropping area and cropping intensity. The key atmospheric variables that impact crops are solar radiation, air temperature, humidity, and precipitation. Weather is day-to-day variability of these variables across the landscape. Weather extremes at critical periods of a crop’s development can have dramatic influences on productivity and yields. Climate in particular describes the long-term average temperature and humidity and the total solar radiation and precipitation over a crop’s growing season. It is the climate that in the absence of any weather extremes, determines the realized yields for a given region. The response of crops to the different weather variables is quite complex and difficult to describe. If one of the variables is limiting, then the effects of other variable like solar radiation or precipitation do not greatly affect the crop. 

The syllabus in Agricultural Meteorology at undergraduate level covers elementary aspects of applied branch of meteorology and climatology in agriculture. Therefore, the present text book entitled ‘Introductory Agro - meteorology & Climate Change (Theory & Practice) brought out with latest information and illustrations in accordance with the syllabus framed at undergraduate level by ICAR as per 5th deans’ committee particularly on topics like atmospheric composition & structure,  weather elements, atmospheric pressure & wind systems, monsoon system, weather hazards & forecasting, remote sensing, climate change variability, adaptation and mitigation,global warming, etc., with the practical exercises related to viz., measurementofbrightsunshine, maximum and minimum temperatures,windspeedandwinddirection, rainfall and evaporation, atmospheric pressure, heatindices, PET, etc. Certainly the science of Agricultural Meteorology has an important role to play in modern day agriculture through education, research and extension activities. Authors have prepared the text book for students of B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture /Horticulture/ Forestry.