Abstract
Rainfall over Madhya Pradesh (MP) in central India has large intra-seasonal variability causing droughts and floods in many years. In this study, rainfall variability in daily and monthly scale over central India has been examined using observed data. Consistency among various datasets such as rainfall, surface temperature, soil moisture and evapotranspiration has been examined. These parameters are from various different sources and critical for drought monitoring and prediction. It is found that during weak phases of monsoon, central India receives deficit rainfall with weaker monsoon circulation. This phase is characterized by an anticyclonic circulation at 850 hPa centered on MP. The EOF analysis of daily rainfall suggests that the two leading modes explain about 23–24% of rainfall variability in intraseasonal timescale. These two modes represent drought/flood conditions over MP. Relationship of weak phases of rainfall over central India with real-time multivariate (RMM) indices of Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) has been examined. It is found that RMM-6, RMM-7, RMM-1 and RMM-2 describe the weak monsoon conditions over central India. However, frequency of drought occurrence over MP is more during RMM-7 phase. Surface temperature increases by about 0.5°–1° during weak phases of rainfall over this region. Soil moisture and evapotranspiration gradually reduce when rainfall reduces over the study region. Soil moisture and evapotranspiration anomalies have positive pattern during good rainfall events over central India and gradually reduce and become negative anomalies during weak phases.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acharya, N., Kar, S. C., Mohanty, U. C., Kulkarni, A., & Dash, S. K. (2011). Performance of GCMs for seasonal prediction over India—A case study for 2009 monsoon. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 105(3), 505–520. doi:10.1007/s00704-010-0396-2.
Ashok, K., Guan, Z., & Yamagata, T. (2001). Impact of the Indian Ocean Dipole on the relationship between the Indian monsoon rainfall and ENSO. Geophysical Reseach Letters, 28, 4499–4502.
Dee, D. P., Uppala, S. M., Simmons, A. J., Berrisford, P., Poli, P., Kobayashi, S., et al. (2011). The ERA-Interim reanalysis: Configuration and performance of the data assimilation system. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 137(656), 553–597.
Gadgil, S. (2003). The Indian monsoon and its variability. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, 31, 429–467.
Gadgil, S., & Joseph, P. V. (2003). On breaks of the Indian monsoon. Indian Academy of Sciences (Earth Planetary Science), 112, 529–558.
Goswami, B. N., & Mohan, R. S. A. (2001). Intraseasonal oscillations and interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon. Journal of Climate, 14, 1180–1198.
Goswami, B. N., & Xavier, P. K. (2003). Potential predictability and extended range prediction of Indian summer monsoon breaks. GRL, 30(18), 1966. doi:10.1029/2003SGL017810.
Gupta, H. (2013). Organic farming and horticulture: new dimensions of agriculture development in MP, India. International Research Journal of Social Sciences, 2(7), 14–18.
Hain, C. R., Crow, W. T., Mecikalski, J. R., Anderson, M. C., & Holmes, T. (2011). An intercomparison of available soil moisture estimates from thermal infrared and passive microwave remote sensing and land surface modeling. Journal of Geophysical Research, 116(D15). doi:10.1029/2011JD015633.
Kar, S. C. (2007). Global model simulations of interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon using observed SST variability. NCMRWF Research Report NMRF/RR/3/2007.
Kar, S. C., Sugi, M., & Sato, N. (1997). Tropical intra-seasonal oscillation (30–60 days) during NH summer in the JMA model simulations. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, 75(5), 975–994.
Kar, S. C., SUGI, M., & SATO, N. (2001). Interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon and internannual variability in the JMA global model simulations. Journal of Meteorological Society Japan, 79(2), 607–623.
Lau, K. M., & Chan, P. H. (1986). Aspects of 40–50 day oscillation during the northern summer as inferred from outgoing longwave radiation. Monthly Weather Review, 114, 1354–1367.
Liu, Y. Y., Parinussa, R. M., Dorigo, W. A., de Jeu, R. A. M., Wagner, W., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., et al. (2011). Developing an improved soil moisture dataset by blending passive and active microwave satellite-based retrievals. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 15(2), 425–436
Liu, Y. Y., Dorigo, W. A., Parinussa, R. M., de Jeu, R. A. M., Wagner, W., McCabe, M. F., et al. (2012). Trend-preserving blending of passive and active microwave soil moisture retrievals. Remote Sensing of Environment, 123, 280–297
Lucas-Picher, P., Christensen, J. H., Saeed, F., Kumar, P., Asharaf, S., Ahrens, B., et al. (2011). Can regional climate models represent the Indian monsoon? Journal of Hydrometeorology, 12, 849–868.
Miralles, D. G., van den Berg, M. J., Teuling, A. J., & de Jeu, R. A. M. (2012). Soil moisture-temperature coupling: A multiscale observational analysis. Geophysical Reseach Letters, 39, L21707. doi:10.1029/2012GL053703.
Pabón, J. D. (2007). Improving climate prediction schemes with intraseasonal variability: A key tool towards hydrometeorological disasters reduction in tropical America. In Proceedings of international roundtable meeting on lessons from natural disasters policy issues and mitigation strategies (Vellore, India, 8–12 January 2007).
Pai, D. S., Jyoti Bhate, O., Sreejith, P., & Hatwar, H. R. (2011). Impact of MJO on the intraseasonal variation of summer monsoon rainfall over India. Climate Dynamics, 36, 41–55.
Parinussa, R. M., Holmes, T. R. H., & de Jeu, R. A. M. (2012). Soil moisture retrievals from the WindSat space borne polarimetric microwave radiometer. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 50, 2683–2694.
Rajeevan, M. (2001). Prediction of Indian summer monsoon: Status, problems and prospects. Current Science, 81, 101–107.
Shrivastava, S., Kar, S. C., & Sharma, A. R. (2016a). Inter-annual variability of summer monsoon rainfall over Myanmar. International Journal of Climatology. doi:10.1002/joc.4741.
Shrivastava, S., Kar, S. C., & Sharma, A. R. (2016b). Soil moisture variations in remotely sensed and reanalysis datasets during weak monsoon conditions over central India and central Myanmar. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. doi:10.1007/s00704-016-1792-z.
Shukla, J. (1987). Interannual variability of monsoons. In: J. Fein & P. L. Stephens (Eds.), Monsoons (pp. 399–464). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sikka, D. R., & Gadgil, S. (1980). On the maximum cloud zone and the ITCZ over Indian longitudes during the southwest monsoon. Monthly Weather Review, 108, 1840–1852.
Sinha, A., Berkelhammer, M., Stott, L., Mudelsee, M., Cheng, H., & Biswas, J. (2011). The leading mode of Indian summer monsoon precipitation variability during the last millennium. Geophysics Research Letters, 38, L15703. doi:10.1029/2011GL047713.
Srivastava, A. K., Rajeevan, M., & Kshirsagar, S. R. (2008). Development of a high resolution daily gridded temperature data set (1969–2005) for the Indian region. NCC Research Report 8, National Climate Centre, India Meteorological Department, Pune, India.
Sun, C., Li, W., Zhang, Z., & He, J. (2005). Distribution and variation features of soil humidity anomaly in Huaihe river basin and its relationship with climatic anomaly. Journal of Applied Meteorological Science, 16, 129–138.
Wagner, W., Dorigo, W., de Jeu, R., Fernandez, D., Benveniste, J., Haas, E., & Ertl M. (2012). Fusion of active and passive microwave observations to create an Essential Climate Variable data record on soil moisture, ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (ISPRS Annals), Vol I7. XXII ISPRS Congress, Melbourne, Australia, p. 315321.
Wheeler, M., & Weickmann, K. M. (2001). Real-time monitoring and prediction of modes of coherent synoptic to intraseasonal tropical variability. Monthly Weather Review, 129, 2677–2694.
Wheeler, M. C., & Hendon H. H. (2004). An all-season real-time multivariate mjo index: development of an index for monitoring and prediction. Monthly Weather Review, 132(8), 1917–1932
Yasunari, T. (1979). Cloudiness fluctuations associated with the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon. Journal of Meteorological Society Japan, 57, 227–242.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shrivastava, S., Kar, S.C. & Sharma, A.R. Intraseasonal Variability of Summer Monsoon Rainfall and Droughts over Central India. Pure Appl. Geophys. 174, 1827–1844 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1498-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1498-x