Science of Monsoon

Context: India needs better science to prepare more effective disaster management plans to tackle the changing nature of monsoons in India

Analyzing the changing nature of monsoons

• Return of ‘rainy epoch’: Scientist believe that monsoon cycles through ‘epochs’ of high and low rainfall lasting two-three decades.
• Over 8% rain surpluses in 2020 surpassed the India Meteorological Department (IMD) estimates.
• India has never got over 105% of the Long Period Average (LPA) in consecutive years in at least 30 years and since 2000, India was in a low patch with several drought years.
• Extreme delay in withdrawal of southwest monsoon: The monsoon’s expected withdrawal date was October 15. 
• Variations in North-East Monsoons: Studies show that northeast monsoon rainfall displays signi?cant variation and climate models are fairly inaccurate in their forecasts.
• Impacts: ?oods, over?owing dams, landslides and loss of lives. 

Way Forward

• The need for efforts to check the ecological impact of rainfall: since surplus rains are not evenly distributed in time and space.

• Improve climate models: by investing in supercomputing infrastructure, since current climate models are relatively inaccurate in their forecasts.

Conclusion: Along with more understanding of how climate is changing locally, India needs better science to prepare more e?ective disaster management plans and improve resilience in a warming world.