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Assessment of intraseasonal variability indices on identifying Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability

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Abstract

Among several indices proposed for monitoring intraseasonal variability (ISV) of convective systems over equatorial and tropical regions, the highly used one is the all-season real-time multivariate (RMM) index, which portrays the intraseasonal variability of eastward-propagating convective systems, known as the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). Similarly, another region-specific index, known as the monsoon intraseasonal oscillation (MISO) index, characterizes the northward rainfall propagation during the Indian summer monsoon. These indices, as well as other similar ones, use phase and amplitude as a representation of the active event’s geographical location and strength, respectively. During particular phases, MJO (phases 1, 2, and 3) and MISO (phases 6, 7, and 8) are active over the equatorial Indian Ocean and the South Indian peninsula. The concurrence of those specific phases of MJO and MISO rises the moisture availability over the region resulting in an increase in daily average rainfall anomaly over the monsoon core zone. Based on the result, it is likely that the positive rainfall anomaly can be caused either due to the co-occurrence of two independent events or by a particular phenomenon represented by similar indices. To extend this comparative study, another highly used index known as the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) index is also used. Consequently, a specific distribution of concurrence was observed between each RMM (MJO) phase and all the individual phases of MISO and BSISO indices. The distribution analysis revealed that three phases of MISO and BSISO indices have a significant co-occurrence with each RMM phase during more than 50% and 80% of the active days respectively. This distribution allows the computation of a weightage factor, which can be utilized to reconstruct the phase composite of rainfall for MISO and BSISO based solely on the RMM indices The striking similarity between real and reconstructed fields raises doubts about the indices’ mutually exclusive characteristics and pushes for the introduction of a uniform indexing system that may explain the dominating factor of ISV (northward/eastward) of rainfall for different seasons.

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Data availability

MISO data (1998–2020) is available at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) (source: https://www.tropmet.res.in/erpas/files/miso_data.php). RMM indices (01/06/1974—present) are available in https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.BoM/.MJO/.RMM/.phase/datafiles.html. BSISO indices (1981—present) are available in https://www.apcc21.org/ser/moni.do?lang=en. The TRMM daily precipitation data is freely available from https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/TRMM_3B42_Daily_7/summary.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Rahul Deogharia and Sudeep Das for their scientific insights during the discussion. The authors thank Nirupam Karmakar (SEOCS, IIT Bhubaneswar) for the scientific discussion. All figures are generated in MATLAB software. The authors thank the editor and reviewers for the insightful comments and suggestion to improve the quality of the work.

Funding

This study is supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India (Grant No. CRG/2019/005842).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ocean Analysis and Modelling Laboratory, School of Earth, Ocean, and Climate Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Jatni, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, 752050, India

    Arkaprava Ray & Sourav Sil

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  1. Arkaprava Ray
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  2. Sourav Sil
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AR: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis and investigation, and original draft preparation; SS: review and editing, funding acquisition, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Sourav Sil.

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Ray, A., Sil, S. Assessment of intraseasonal variability indices on identifying Indian summer monsoon rainfall variability. Theor Appl Climatol 153, 287–296 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04470-9

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