The Indian Monsoon and Its Variability
Top Cited Papers
- 1 May 2003
- journal article
- Published by Annual Reviews in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Vol. 31 (1) , 429-467
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.141251
Abstract
▪ Abstract For over 300 years, the monsoon has been viewed as a gigantic land-sea breeze. It is shown in this paper that satellite and conventional observations support an alternative hypothesis, which considers the monsoon as a manifestation of seasonal migration of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). With the focus on the Indian monsoon, the mean seasonal pattern is described, and why it is difficult to simulate it is discussed. Some facets of the intraseasonal variation, such as active-weak cycles; break monsoon; and a special feature of intraseasonal variation over the region, namely, poleward propagations of the ITCZ at intervals of 2–6 weeks, are considered. Vertical moist stability is shown to be a key parameter in the variation of monthly convection over ocean and land as well as poleward propagations. Special features of the Bay of Bengal and the monsoon brought out by observations during a national observational experiment in 1999 are briefly described.Keywords
This publication has 86 references indexed in Scilit:
- Observations of barrier layer formation in the Bay of Bengal during summer monsoonJournal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2002
- Near‐surface variations and surface fluxes over the northern Bay of Bengal during the 1999 Indian summer monsoonJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2002
- Oscillations of Bay of Bengal sea surface temperature during the 1998 Summer MonsoonGeophysical Research Letters, 2001
- Near surface atmospheric characteristics over the North Bay of Bengal during the Indian Summer MonsoonGeophysical Research Letters, 2001
- Intraseasonal oscillations and interannual variability of surface winds over the Indian monsoon regionJournal of Earth System Science, 1998
- Meridional propagation of large-scale monsoon convective zonesArchiv für Meteorologie, Geophysik und Bioklimatologie Serie A, 1993
- Low frequency variation of tropical convergence zonesArchiv für Meteorologie, Geophysik und Bioklimatologie Serie A, 1990
- Synoptic climatology of transient tropical intraseasonal convection anomalies: 1975?1985Archiv für Meteorologie, Geophysik und Bioklimatologie Serie A, 1990
- Low-Frequency Transitions of a Simple Monsoon SystemJournal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 1980
- An historical account of the trade winds, and monsoons, observable in the seas between and near the Tropicks, with an attempt to assign the physical cause of the said windsPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1686