It has become so difficult now to predict, even the onset of North-East Monsoon in Peninsular INDIA:
Why is it so?
Global warming could be the cause?
El-Nino could be the cause?
A complex interplay between El-Nino and Indian-Nino (IOD)?
Global warning/Climate change has intensified the situation. The duration of seasons have changed
Yes Sir.
I completely agree with you.
Yes...........India, somehow missed the revolution in numerical weather prediction - as quoted in the reference material.
Prediction of monsoon remains difficult despite significant progress in recent decades. We have definitely advanced since the first attempts of sir. Gilbert Walker in the 1920s and 1930s. For the historical account and the summary of the problems, I would like to suggest a classic article by Webster et al. (1998): Monsoons: Processes, predictability, and the prospects for prediction (a pdf file is attached to my note). The main reason for the prediction difficulties is a complex structure of interactions between the monsoon, ENSO and other climatic factors. The schemes of all possible modes of interactions are depicted in Fig. 5 on page 14 459 of the attached paper.
The other question is why the monsoon forecast is getting even harder now, despite the availability of excellent NWP models.
After analyzing the factors affecting the monsoon, I came to the conclusion that the growing number of dust storms is the main culprit. Given the important role of particles in controlling weather conditions over India, we can expect improvements in predictability when the variables characterizing the dust-cloud interaction are included in atmospheric models.
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-monsoon-intensity-captured.html
Recent results from the CAIPEEX project in India:
https://www.tropmet.res.in/~caipeex/
can provide valuable information how to modify the microphysical part of the predictive models used for monsoon forecasts (the additional document describing CAIPEEX is attached).
The interactions are indeed complex and given that some components follow the laws of chaotic dynamical systems, it is unlikely that we would produce a perfect deterministic forecast. The new factor that has emerged recently is the increasing frequency of dust storms. The results are summarized in the following quotes from Chandra Bhushan (deputy director general at the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based think tank)
"[The] intensity of sandstorms is increasing across the world,"
"All of them are saying that as the climate gets warmer the temperature gradient is going to become very steep. This steep increase in temperature gradient will lead to two things—heat waves and sand storms”
"There is enough research happening [to predict] that the intensity of sandstorms is going to become more intense as the temperature increases further. It is indeed linked to climate change."
https://psmag.com/environment/the-dust-storms-are-becoming-more-severe
I also attached a satellite image from the article published in Nature by William Lau: Desert dust and monsoon rain.
(The data is from Earth Science Division of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2115
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