Moisture variability over the Indo-Pacific region and its influence on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall

• Published in: Climate dynamics 2016-02, Vol.46 (3-4), p.949-965
• Main Authors: Ratna, Satyaban B., Cherchi, Annalisa, Joseph, P. V., Behera, S. K., Abish, B., Masina, Simona
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Atmospheric circulation; Climatology; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geophysics/Geodesy; Marine; Monsoons; Ocean warming; Oceanography; Precipitation variability; Rain; Rain and rainfall; Rainfall; Sea surface temperature; Storms; Summer; Temperature
• ISSN: 0930-7575; 1432-0894
• DOI: 10.1007/s00382-015-2624-z

The Indo-Pacific Ocean (i.e. region between 30°E and 150°E) has been experiencing a warming since the 1950s. At the same time, the large-scale summer monsoon rainfall over India and the moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea are both decreasing. In this study, we intend to investigate how the decrease of moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea is related to the Indo-Pacific Ocean warming and how this could affect the variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall. We performed the analysis for the period 1951–2012 based on observed precipitation, sea surface temperature and atmospheric reanalysis products and we verified the robustness of the result by comparing different datasets. The decreasing trend of moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea coincides with an increasing trend of moisture over the western Pacific region. This is accompanied by the strengthening (weakening) of the upward motion over the western Pacific (East Africa/Arabian Sea) that, consequently, contributes to modulate the western Pacific-Indian Ocean Walker circulation. At the same time, the low-level westerlies are weakening over the peninsular India, thus contributing to the reduction of moisture transport towards India. Therefore, rainfall has decreased over the Western Ghats and central-east India. Contrary to previous decades, since 2003 moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea started to increase and this is accompanied by the strengthening of convection due to increased warming of sea surface temperature over the western Arabian Sea. Despite this moisture increase over the Arabian Sea, we found that moisture transport is still weakening over the Indian landmass in the very recent decade and this has been contributing to the decreased precipitation over the northeast India and southern part of the Western Ghats.