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How climate change is affecting the summer monsoon extreme rainfall pattern over the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India: present and future perspectives

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Abstract

The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), the source of grains for around 40% Indian population, is known as the breadbasket of India. The Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) plays a vital role in the agricultural activities in this region. The rapid urbanization, land use and land cover change have significantly impacted the region’s agriculture, water resources, and socioeconomic facets. The present study has investigated the observed and regional modeling aspects of ISMR characteristics, associated extremes over the IGP, and future perspectives under the high-emission RCP8.5-scenario. Future projections suggest a 10–20% massive decrease during pre-monsoon (March–May) and earlier ISM season months (i.e., June and July). A significant 40–70% decline in mean monsoon rainfall during the June–July months in the near future (NF; 2041–2060) has been projected compared to the historical period (1986–2005). An abrupt increase of 80–170% in mean monsoon rainfall during the post-monsoon (October–December) in the far future (FF; 2080–2099) is also projected. The distribution of projected extreme rainfall events shows a decline in moderate or rather heavy events (5 or more) in NF and FF. Further, an increase in higher rainfall category events such as very heavy (5–10) and extremely heavy rainfall (5 or more) events in NF and FF under the warmer climate is found. However, the changes are less prominent during FF compared to the NF. The mean thresholds for extremely heavy rainfall may increase by 1.9–4.9% during NF and FF. Further, the evolution patterns of various quantities, such as tropospheric temperature gradient (TG), specific humidity, and mean sea level pressure, have been analyzed to understand the physical processes associated with rainfall extremes. The strengthening in TG and enhanced atmospheric moisture content in NF and FF support the intensification in projected rainfall extremes over IGP.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets generated and the codes used during the analysis for the study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is a part of the Ph.D. dissertation of MP. The authors thank the WCRP for initiating the CORDEX project and India Meteorology Department (IMD) for providing the data used in this study. The authors sincerely thank ICTP for delivering and developing the RegCM4. The scientific calculations and data visualizations are considered using GrADS, CDO, Matlab, and R. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding

This work is supported by an R & D project funded under DST, Govt. of India. One of the authors (RB) also acknowledges the IOE grant under Dev. scheme No. 6031(A).

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Author notes

  1. Sushant Das

    Present address: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    Manas Pant & R. Bhatla

  2. DST-Mahamana Centre of Excellence in Climate Change Research, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    Manas Pant, R. Bhatla & R. K. Mall

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Soumik Ghosh

  4. Earth System Physics Section, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

    Sushant Das

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Contributions

The idea of the present study is proposed by MP and SG, and is designed by SG, MP, and RB. SD provided the model-simulated data sets, and MP did the data processing. MP, SG, SD, and RB analyzed the data and visualized it by MP and SG. MP wrote the first draft, which SG subsequently modified. The work is investigated by MP, SG, and SD, and supervised by RB and RKM. All the authors have read the manuscript, provided their expertise to improve the work quality, and accepted the author’s agreement. There is no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Soumik Ghosh.

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Pant, M., Bhatla, R., Ghosh, S. et al. How climate change is affecting the summer monsoon extreme rainfall pattern over the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India: present and future perspectives. Clim Dyn 62, 1055–1075 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06953-x

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