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Major climatological discontinuities in the monthly activity of the summer monsoon over Asia

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Summary

It is well known that the activity of the summer monsoon, as measured by rainfall, undergoes variations from one month to another. In this study, the monsoon activity has been examined in detail to find if any major climatological discontinuities in the activity exist in the field of the Asian summer monsoon. From amongst the possible criteria for major discontinuity, the criterion based on the lower and the upper quartiles has been selected. The study brings out that major climatological discontinuities do exist over some parts of Asia. These are (i) a marked decrease in activity from July to August, right in the middle of the monsoon season, over the west coast of India, between Bombay and Trivandrum; (ii) a marked decrease from August to September over a small portion of the Indian west coast in the neighbourhood of Mangalore; (iii) a marked decrease from August to September over the Arakan coast; and (iv) a marked increase from August to September over the Viet Nam coast. Possible causes of these discontinuities have been discussed.

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  1. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, 5, Poona, India

    D. A. Mooley

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  1. D. A. Mooley
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Mooley, D.A. Major climatological discontinuities in the monthly activity of the summer monsoon over Asia. PAGEOPH 112, 545–552 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877291

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00877291

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