Fitzpatrick, RGJ orcid.org/0000-0002-2562-3373, Parker, DJ orcid.org/0000-0003-2335-8198 and Willetts, PD orcid.org/0000-0002-6769-2377 (2016) Assessing the level of spatial homogeneity of the agronomic Indian monsoon onset. Geophysical Research Letters, 43 (22). pp. 11867-11874. ISSN 0094-8276
Abstract
Over monsoon regions, such as the Indian subcontinent, the local onset of persistent rainfall is a crucial event in the annual climate for agricultural planning. Recent work suggested that local onset dates are spatially coherent to a practical level over West Africa; a similar assessment is undertaken here for the Indian subcontinent. Areas of coherent onset, defined as local onset regions or LORs, exist over the studied region. These LORs are significant up to the 95% confidence interval and are primarily clustered around the Arabian Sea (adjacent to and extending over the Western Ghats), the Monsoon Trough (north central India), and the Bay of Bengal. These LORs capture regions where synoptic scale controls of onset may be present and identifiable. In other regions, the absence of LORs is indicative of regions where local and stochastic factors may dominate onset. A potential link between sea surface temperature anomalies and LOR variability is presented. Finally, Kerala, which is often used as a representative onset location, is not contained within an LOR suggesting that variability here may not be representative of wider onset variability.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016, The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproducti on in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | monsoon; agronomic onsets; India; seasonal forecasting; interannual variability |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Royal Society No External Reference NERC No External Refererence NERC NE/M020126/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Jan 2017 12:51 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jan 2018 11:18 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070711 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Geophysical Union (AGU) |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/2016GL070711 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:110136 |