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Local onset and demise of the Indian summer monsoon

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Abstract

This paper introduces an objective definition of local onset and demise of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) at the native grid of the Indian Meteorological Department’s rainfall analysis based on more than 100 years of rain gauge observations. The variability of the local onset/demise of the ISM is shown to be closely associated with the All India averaged rainfall onset/demise. This association is consistent with the corresponding evolution of the slow large-scale reversals of upper air and ocean variables that raise the hope of predictability of local onset and demise of the ISM. The local onset/demise of the ISM also show robust internannual variations associated with El Nino and the Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean dipole mode. It is also shown that the early monsoon rains over northeast India has a predictive potential for the following seasonal anomalies of rainfall and seasonal length of the monsoon over rest of India.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ms. Tracy Ippolito for her editorial assistance with the paper. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support given by NOAA (NA12OAR4310078) and the Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India (Grant number MM/SERP/FSU/2014/SSC-02/002) to conduct this research under Monsoon Mission. We also thank the Indian Meteorological Department for the availability of the daily rain analysis over India. The data used in this study are publicly available datasets. ERA-20C is available from https://www.ecmwf.int/en/research/climate-reanalysis/era-20c; CFSR is available from https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds093.1/; and IMD rainfall analysis from http://www.imdpune.gov.in/ndc_new/ndc_index.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra, Amit Bhardwaj & Akhilesh Mishra

  2. Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra

  3. Florida Climate Institute, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra & Amit Bhardwaj

  4. Amity Center for Ocean–Atmosphere Science and Technology, Amity University, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Akhilesh Mishra

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  1. Vasubandhu Misra
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Correspondence to Vasubandhu Misra.

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Misra, V., Bhardwaj, A. & Mishra, A. Local onset and demise of the Indian summer monsoon. Clim Dyn 51, 1609–1622 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3924-2

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