Indian Monsoon System

Indian Monsoon system
The word monsoon is derived from the Arabic word “Mausim”, which means seasonality
(Loo et al., 2015) and the monsoon is characterized by the seasonal reversal of wind direction.
The difference in the thermal contrast between the land and the ocean and the seasonal
migration of Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is the driving force for the seasonal
reversal of monsoon winds (Gadgil, 2003). During winter, the air over the land becomes cooler
and thus denser than the air over the water, which creates a surface pressure contrast, resulting
in dry northeasterly winds that moves across the continent. On the other hand, in spring the
continent warms quickly compared to the ocean resulting in the formation of southwesterly
wind which blows across the Arabian Sea and it carries moisture towards India. The Indian
monsoon system influence the surface circulation, surface productivity, particle flux and E-P
balance of the Arabian Sea (Haake et al., 1993; Sarkar et al., 2000). Of the two monsoons, the
summer monsoon causes heavy rainfall over the Indian subcontinent and is about 80% of
India’s total annual rainfall (Parthasarathy, 1960). In the past, India experienced drought and
flood conditions resulted from weak and strong summer monsoon. The Indian monsoon
exhibits large variations on intraseasonal to interannual and interdecadal time scales(Gadgil et
al., 2003; Goswami et al., 2001; Pathak et al., 2017). The summer monsoon variability had a
profound influence on the rise and fall of several civilizations. For eg increased rainfall as a
result of intensified summer monsoon (6–4.3 ky BP) contributed to the growth of Harappan
civilization in the Indus valley whereas its decline at around 4ka was connected to the major
drought condition as a result of weakened summer monsoon (Giesche et al. 2019). The
intraseasonal and interannual variability of the summer monsoon has a tremendous socio-
economic impact on India, especially in the fields of agriculture and health. There have been few
studies which studied the variation of the summer monsoon in the past few decades (Kitoh et al., 2013;
Roxy et al., 2015; Sinha et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2013).Wang et al., 2013, suggested an increase in the
monsoon rainfall in the last three decade by 9.5% per degree global warming. In contrary, few other
studies suggest a declining trend in the monsoon rainfall since 1950 (Kitoh et al., 2013; Zhou et al.,
2008). Roxy et al., 2014 have observed a weakening of the monsoon rainfall between 1901-2012 which
was linked to the warming of Indian Ocean. The decline in the monsoon rainfall will have great impact
on the agriculture. Thus under the present climate change scenario, a clear understanding of the past
monsoon rhythmicity and the processes involved is necessary to predict the future change .
Numerous studies have been conducted using different proxies to understand the variability
of Indian monsoon at different time scales (Anderson et al., 2002 ; Jung et al., 2002…….).Both
model and paleoclimatic studies suggested a link between Indian monsoon and North Atlantic
Climate (Agnihotri et al., 2002; Broccoli et al., 2006; Fleitmann et al., 2007; Mohtadi et al.,
2014
Recently, Goswami et al (2006) have identi- fied a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon

that provides a new teleconnection between the North Atlantic climate and the SW monsoon on
interdecadal timescale and is suggested to be effective on longer timescales as well. It involves
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations (AMO), a basin wide phenomenon of oscillating sea
surface temperatures (SST) with period of 65–80 years (Kerr 2000), and the North Atlantic
Oscillation (NAO), a sea level pressure fluctuation between the Icelandic Low and the Azores
High (essentially wind strength) with strong annual and weak inter-decadal perio- dicities
(Wallace 2000). AMO modulates the NAO in such a way that the strong negative NAO events
influence the winds and storm tracks that lead to tropospheric temperature anomalies over
Eurasia. These anomalies decrease (increase) the meridional gradient of tropospheric tempera-
ture resulting in below (above) normal monsoon rainfall.

Indian Monsoon System

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Indian Monsoon system

Recently, Goswami et al (2006) have identi- fied a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon

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