"Climate change poses a serious threat to the pristine wealth of Western Ghats in the state. Now it is time to set up a high-tech sophisticated center to record the process of global warming there," said a senior state official.

She said funds and technical help have been sought from the Union government. The proposed center would help improve the reliability of climate projections at a regional level and use dynamic vegetation models as and when required.

Western Ghats Mountains are one of the 34 global biodiversity hot spots in the world, being the habitat of wide variety of flora and fauna.

The move to set up a centre in the region is part of the state government's aim to establish a "climate change task force" similar to the one in Himachal Pradesh. The state government is also now preparing an action plan to adapt to possible socio-economic and environmental fallouts in the state where 80 per cent of agriculture is rain fed.

A recent study by climate experts from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has claimed that "not only will climate change endanger many species of the Western Ghats, but can also cause forest boundaries of Karnataka to shift by 40 per cent by 2085."