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An investigation of long-term changes in rainfall over the equatorial Indian Ocean trough region during northern summer using multisatellite data

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Abstract

During the Indian monsoon season, organized convection in the form of inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) originates from the equatorial trough (ET) region over the equatorial Indian Ocean, propagates northward towards the heated Indian landmass at intraseasonal timescales (30–60 days). In this paper, the long-term changes in rainfall over the ET region during the northern summer season has been investigated for a 34-year (1979–2012) period using gauge-adjusted multisatellite Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) rainfall data set. Rainfall over this region shows a pronounced seasonality and the eastern ET (EET) receives higher rainfall than the western ET (WET) during the northern summer season. Moreover, the northern summer rainfall over the WET and EET are not significantly correlated with each other. Linear trend analysis of domain-mean seasonal rainfall shows a statistically significant increasing trend of 0.4 mm day−1 decade−1 during the northern summer over the WET, whereas no significant trend is observed over the EET. The long-term changes in the associated variables linked through the moisture budget equation are also examined over both regions of ET for the study period. Even though evaporation over both WET and EET shows statistically significant increasing trend associated with an increase in sea surface temperature and near-surface wind, the vertically integrated moisture convergence shows no significant change over the WET whereas it shows a decrease over the EET during the study period. These might be the possible reasons behind a significant increase in rainfall over the WET with an insignificant change in rainfall over the EET.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the editor-in-chief and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. They also thank Dr. G. J. Huffman for his helpful suggestions. The GPCP SG combined precipitation data were developed and computed at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center’s Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Laboratory—Atmospheres as a contribution to the GEWEX Global Precipitation Climatology Project, ERA-Interim reanalysis data obtained from the ECMWF data server and OAFlux evaporation data from the WHOI are thankfully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Noida, 201309, India

    Satya Prakash & A. K. Mitra

  2. Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Group, Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad, 380015, India

    C. Mahesh, V. Sathiyamoorthy & R. M. Gairola

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  1. Satya Prakash
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  2. C. Mahesh
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  3. V. Sathiyamoorthy
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  4. R. M. Gairola
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  5. A. K. Mitra
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Correspondence to Satya Prakash.

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Prakash, S., Mahesh, C., Sathiyamoorthy, V. et al. An investigation of long-term changes in rainfall over the equatorial Indian Ocean trough region during northern summer using multisatellite data. Theor Appl Climatol 124, 129–139 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1406-1

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