JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 116, D06104, doi:10.

1029/2010JD014966, 2011

Trend and spectral analysis of rainfall over India

during 19012000
Manish K. Joshi1 and A. C. Pandey1
Received 31 August 2010; revised 25 December 2010; accepted 11 January 2011; published 17 March 2011.

[1] The spectral analysis of gridded rainfall data obtained from 1384 rain gauge stations
by India Meteorological Department demonstrates not much change in lowfrequency
components of decadal spectra of all India and its four subregions, namely, southwest,
southeast, central, and northwest, during the last 10 decades. However, the dominant
as well as the significant cycles lying between the periods 1020 days, 2030 days,
3040 days, and 4050 days are highly variable on an interdecadal basis. On close
inspection, it can be inferred that the 4050 day oscillations that corresponds to
MaddenJulian Oscillations is mainly associated with the southern Indian region,
namely southwest and southeast, and the 3040 day oscillation of southeast region is
gradually increasing on a decadal scale during the last 4 decades. The physical context
of interdecadal variability of rainfall in India can be linked with the warm phase of
Atlantic multidecadal oscillations and the cold phase of interdecadal Pacific oscillations.
The correlogram analysis shows the presence of 15, (17, 19), and 17 year cycles for
the southwest, central, and northwest regions, respectively. No significant trend is
discernable during the last 10 decades, when the linear least squares fitting method
and MannKendall statistic to identify the trend and the normalized test statistic and
statistical probability to quantify the significance of the trend are applied, on the annual
rainfall data for all India and its subregions.
Citation: Joshi, M. K., and A. C. Pandey (2011), Trend and spectral analysis of rainfall over India during 19012000,
J. Geophys. Res., 116, D06104, doi:10.1029/2010JD014966.

1. Introduction
[2] Rainfall is the end product of a number of complex
atmospheric processes, which vary both in space and time
[Luk et al., 2001]. Knowledge of the spacetime variability
of rainfall is important for meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, telecommunications, and climate research as rainfall and its variability are not only important constituents
of the global hydrological cycle, but also influences the
course of development of all living organisms on our planet
[Kishtawal and Krishnamurti, 2001].
[3] Rainfall variability occurs over a broad range of temporal scales. Knowledge and understanding of such variability can lead to improved risk management practices in
agricultural and other industries. In the tropics, the most
important climate parameter, i.e., the rainfall, has a high
degree of variability on temporal and spatial scale, as compared to the other atmospheric indicators. Apart from the
shortterm fluctuations that are daytoday variations or
weeks to months, there are longerterm fluctuations that
range from a few years to even decades.
[4] Among the wide ranges of time scales, the interannual
variability is most extensively studied. It is reasonable to
1
K. Banerjee Centre of Atmospheric and Ocean Studies, Institute of
Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India.

Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.

01480227/11/2010JD014966

expect that the nature of the interannual variability of seasonal averages will depend upon the spatial and temporal
domains for which the averages are calculated [Shukla,
1987]. Part of the interannual variability may be due to
changes in the intensity of mean atmospheric circulation systems, and part of it may be simply due to shifts in location
and timing of those circulation systems [Shukla, 1987].
[5] The predictability of the seasonal mean monsoon
depends on the nature of interannual variability of the monsoon. Various components of the Asian monsoon also
exhibit significant interdecadal variability [Mooley and
Parthasarathy, 1984; Kripalani et al., 1997; Mehta and
Lau, 1997; Parthasarathy et al., 1991; Wu and Wang,
2002]. A better understanding of interdecadal variability
may therefore be very important in improving the predictability of the seasonal monsoon climate.
[6] Krishnamurti and Bhalme [1976] reported the presence of the spectral peaks at 1020 days in pressure and
other data while Krishnamurti and Ardanuy [1980] observed
1020, 2030, and 3040 day variability in longer surface
pressure data. Murakami [1977] reported the existence of
5 day and 15 day peaks in the spectral analysis of Indian
monsoon. Hartmann and Gross [1988] studied the seasonal
variability of spectral peaks in the 4050 day range for
winds and precipitation in the tropical Pacific and Indian
Ocean region. Hartmann and Michelsen [1989] performed
spectral analysis of a 70 year record of daily precipitation, to
search for such periodicities on subseasonal time scales,

D06104

1 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

during the summer monsoon and noticed the presence of

4050 day spectral peak, corresponding to MaddenJulian
oscillation (MJO) over most of south India.
[7] The seasonal monsoon rainfall is found to consist of
two dominant intraseasonal oscillations with periods of 45
and 20 days and three seasonally persisting components,
by using Multichannel Singular Spectrum Analysis (MSSA)
of daily rainfall anomaly [Krishnamurthy and Shukla, 2007].
[8] Kane [1995] subjected the summer monsoon rainfall
time series for 29 subdivisions of India from 1951 to 1991 to
maximum entropy spectral analysis and reported the periodicities in a wide range, including quasibiennial oscillation (QBO, 23 years) and quasitriennial oscillation (QTO,
33.9 years). Rangarajan [1994] analyzed Homogeneous
Indian Monsoon (HIM) region rainfall for the epoch 1871
1990 using Singular Spectral Analysis (SSA) and reported
that the HIM time series is simple in structure with only
the annual oscillation and its first two harmonics accounting
for almost the entire variability. Vijayakumar and Kulkarni
[1995] applied SSA to the white noise of the Indian Summer
Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) series for extracting the statistically significant oscillations with periods 2.8 and 2.3 years.
[9] Laughlin et al. [2003] analyzed rainfall by means of
standard statistics such as average value, variance, coefficient of variation, and percentiles. Peters et al. [2002] has
presented a power law behavior in the distribution of rainfall over at least 4 decades. In recent years, Lihua et al.
[2007] used Scargle periodogram and wavelet transform
methods to study the periodicity of ISMR changes between
1871 and 2004 and reviewed the possible influence of solar
activity on the rainfall.
[10] Munot and Kothawale [2000] used the daily rainfall
data of 30 years (19601989) period and clearly delineated
the preactive, active, and postactive phases of the summer
monsoon (JuneSeptember) for all India and homogeneous
regions of India. It was observed that the monsoon is active
for 103 days over northeast (NE India) India, for 7578 days
over centralnortheast (CNE India) India and so on for all
the regions.
[11] Rajeevan et al. [2008] examined the variability and
longterm trends of extreme rainfall events over central
India and reported that interannual, interdecadal, and long
term trends of extreme rainfall events are modulated by the
SST variations over the tropical Indian Ocean.
[12] Periodogram or Fourier line spectrum, also referred
as power spectrum, is used to examine graphically the characteristics of the time series that has been Fourier transformed into a frequency domain [Wilks, 1995], where the
Fourier series represents the signal, such as atmospheric and
oceanic parameters, namely, rainfall, winds (which include
both zonal and meridional winds), pressure, cloud cover,
outgoing longwave radiation and many others in both
spatial and temporal domain, by emphasizing how much
information is contained at different frequencies. The Fourier
transform decomposes the observed field into independent
components referred as harmonics and the spectral analysis
of space harmonics (zonal waves) explains the energetic,
while the time harmonics (frequency) provides information
regarding the variability.
[13] NASA scientists have detected the first signs that the
tropical rainfall is on the rise with the longest and most
complete data record available. Guojun Gu, a research sci-

D06104

entist, reported that the total amount of rainfall has changed

very little during the period 19792005. But in tropics,
where nearly two thirds of the rain falls, there has been an
increase of 5%. This rainfall increase was mainly concentrated over the tropical oceans, with a slight decline over the
land. Climate scientists predicted that a warming trend in
Earths atmosphere and surface temperatures would produce
an accelerated recycling of water, between land, sea, and air.
Warmer temperatures increase the evaporation of water
from the ocean and land and allow air to hold more moisture. Eventually, clouds form that produce rain and snow
(http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_account/long_
term_increase_in_rainfall_seen_in_tropics).
[14] Scrutinizing global model warming projections in
models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), a team of scientists headed by meteorologist ShangPing Xie, finds that ocean temperature patterns
in the tropics and subtropics will change in ways that will
lead to noteworthy changes in rainfall patterns. Scientists
have mostly assumed that the surfaces of Earths oceans will
warm rather evenly in the tropics. This assumption has led
to wettergetswetter and driergetsdrier regional rainfall projections. Xie reported that Compared to the mean
projected rise of 1C, such differences are fairly large and
can have a pronounced impact on tropical and subtropical
climate by altering atmospheric heating patterns and therefore rainfall (http://desertification.wordpress.com/2010/03/
01/tropicsglobalwarminglikelytosignificantlyaffect
rainfallpatternssciencedaily).
[15] The main objective of this paper is to observe what
will be the consequence of this increasing trend in global sea
surface temperature (SST), which is generally referred to as
global warming, on the trend of annual rainfall along with
the variations in the power spectra in each decade for all
India and its subregions during the analysis period (1901
2000). Further, an attempt has been made to study all India
and its subregions annual rainfall series to identify the climate changes (i.e., the epochs of increasing/decreasing
trends).
[16] The data used in the present study are described in
section 2. The method of analysis is given in section 3.
Section 4.1 provides the results obtained from the trend
analysis, whereas section 4.2 discusses the variations in the
power spectra in each decade. Section 5 provides the summary and conclusion.

2. Data
[17] The gridded rainfall data used for the present study
was obtained from 1384 stations observed by India Meteorological Department (IMD) which had a minimum 70%
data availability during the analysis period (19012004) in
order to minimize the risk of generating temporal inhomogeneities in the gridded data due to varying station densities.
Before interpolating station rainfall data into regular grids
of 1 latitude 1 longitude, multistage quality control of
observed data was carried out [Rajeevan et al., 2008]. The
detailed description of the development of a highresolution
daily gridded rainfall data for the Indian region is given by
Rajeevan et al. [2008]. The Shepards interpolation scheme
[Shepard, 1968] is used for interpolating station rainfall
data into regular grids, including the directional effects and

2 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Figure 1. Geographical subregions chosen for the study. The

subregions are: subregion a, southwest (11.5N21.5N,
73.5E76.5E); subregion b, southeast (8.5N16.5N,
77.5E80.5E); subregion c, central (20.5N26.5N,
79.5E85.5E); and subregion d, northwest (23.5N
31.5N, 71.5E76.5E).
barriers. The geographical area covered in this data is 6.5N
38.5N and 66.5E100.5E.
[18] The SST data used in this study came from the
HadISST v.1.1 data set created by the Hadley Centre for
Climate Prediction and Research [Rayner et al., 2003]. The
monthly mean SST data are provided on a 1 1 latitude/
longitude global grid and data used in present study covers
the period 19012000.
[19] Atlantic multidecadal oscillations (AMO) index was
obtained from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/timeseries/
AMO/, whereas the interdecadal Pacific oscillations (IPO)
index was taken from Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate
Change.

D06104

Cramers tvalue at 5% level, the required tvalue is 1.96

or more [Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1984].
[23] For identifying the trend in the annual rainfall data,
the linear least squares fitting method is used. The results
obtained are further verified by using a powerful and nonparametric MannKendall Statistics (S) [Gilbert, 1987].
[24] Further the Correlogram analysis [Parthasarathy and
Dhar, 1975; Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1984] is performed
on the annual rainfall data to find a cycle, if any, present in
the rainfall data. The autocorrelation coefficients (ACC) of
annual rainfall data for all India and its subregions have
been worked out up to 45 lags (i.e., for lag less than N/2,
where N is the number of years) because at large value of
lag, much of the data is lost and the correlations for the lag >
N/2 and lag > N/3 are rarely computed [Wilks, 1995]. The
critical values of ACC for a given significance level say
95%, depends on whether the test is onetailed or two
tailed. In the present study, a twotailed test is applied
(http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/dmeko/notes_3.pdf ).
[25] In addition to this, the decadal spectra have been used
to evaluate the changes, which take place in the rainfall pattern, on decadal basis. The red noise spectrum [Wilks, 1995]
of each decadal spectrum is computed. The confidence limits
associated with the red noise spectrum is calculated, assuming c2 statistics with two degrees of freedom. The required
c2 values, for 90%, 95%, and 99% confidence levels, are
4.605, 5.991, and 9.210. Prior to perform the spectral analysis, the 5 day running mean of daily rainfall data of each
year was performed, so that the highfrequency fluctuations
may die out and more accurate periodicities can be obtained.

4. Results
[26] The statistical parameters of all India and its subregions annual rainfall for the analysis period (19012000)
have been computed and tabulated in Table 1. The area
average of the climatological mean rainfall over all India,
southwest, southeast, central, and northwest regions are
3.47 mm/d, 4.05 mm/d, 2.41 mm/d, 3.38 mm/d, and
1.45 mm/d, respectively. The mean (standard deviation)

3. Method of Analysis
[20] The 100 year (19012000) IMD gridded rainfall data
has been spectrally analyzed on decadal scale to find out
the periodicity in rainfall of all India, southwest (11.5N
21.5N, 73.5E76.5E), southeast (8.5N16.5N, 77.5E
80.5E), central (20.5N26.5N, 79.5E85.5E), and northwest (23.5N31.5N, 71.5E76.5E) regions as shown in
Figure 1 was first defined by Krishnamurthy and Shukla
[2000]. The selection of these regions was based on the
geographical uniformity in the rainfall.
[21] The climatology of data for the period of analysis is
limited to calendar day, and the grid boxes without data are
excluded from the area averages. The time series of the area
averages for all India and its subregions is shown in Figure 2
and is in conformity with the results of Krishnamurthy and
Shukla [2000].
[22] The 10 year moving ttest known as Cramers test
[Lawson et al., 1981] is applied to the annual rainfall data to
measure the difference, in terms of moving tstatistic, tk,
between the mean of each successive 10 year period and the
mean of the entire 100 year period. For significance of

Figure 2. Daily climatological mean (mm/d) of 5 day running mean of rainfall area averaged over all India, southwest, southeast, central, and northwest regions.

3 of 13

D06104

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Table 1. Statistics of Annual Rainfall over the Period 19012000

Region

Climatological
Mean Rainfall
(mm/d)

Mean Annual
Rainfall (mm)

Standard
Deviation
(mm)

Coefficient of
Variation (%)

All India
Southwest
Southeast
Central
Northwest

3.47
4.05
2.41
3.38
1.45

1252.1
1462.6
869.6
1218.8
522.05

110.3
185.8
119.3
158.8
126.7

8.81
12.7
13.7
13.03
24.27

Table 2. MannKendall Statistics (S)

Region

Confidence in
Trend (1 p)

Nature of
Trend

Global SST
All India
Southwest
Southeast
Central
Northwest

3442
542
482
538
572
396

10.2477
1.6112
1.4325
1.5992
1.7005
1.1764

100
89.1
85.7
88.9
90.6
80.03

Increasing
No Trend
No Trend
No Trend
No Trend
No Trend

annual rainfall for all India, southwest, southeast, central, and

northwest regions are 1252.1 mm (110.3 mm), 1462.6 mm
(185.8 mm), 869.6 mm (119.3 mm), 1218.8 mm (158.8 mm),
and 522.05 mm (126.7 mm), respectively. This means that
southwest/northwest is the heavy/low rainfall occurring region,
whereas the central/southeast is the more moderate/less moderate rainfall occurring region. The coefficient of variation
(COV), a statistical measure of how the individual data points
vary about the mean value, for all India, southwest, southeast, central, and northwest regions are 8.81%, 12.7%, 13.7%,
13.03%, and 24.27%, respectively.
[27] The annual mean anomaly of globally averaged
monthly SSTs and its linear trend which was computed
using the linear least squares fitting method is shown in
Figure 3 with solid black and red lines, respectively. The
annual mean of globally averaged monthly SSTs shows an
increasing trend during the analysis period. This increasing
trend is further verified by using MannKendall Statistics.
The positive values of MannKendall statistics, S, is an
indicator of an increasing trend. In addition to this, the
normalized test statistic, Z, and statistical probability (1 p)
associated with S is also computed for quantifying the significance in the trend, as tabulated in global SST entries for
confidence in trend and nature of trend in Table 2. The
values given are at 95% level of significance. The value of
Z is positive and the statistical probability is greater than the
level of significance which indicates the increasing trend
condition. This means that there is a significant increasing
trend observed in global SST during the last century.
[28] According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [2001] report that most of the global surface tem-

perature increase has occurred in two periods, namely (1910

1945) and since 1976. Therefore, during the period of analysis (19012000), the periods (19101945) and (1976
2000) have been referred to as global warming periods and
(19011909) and (19461975) have been referred to as nonglobal warming periods, which can be clearly recognizable
from Figure 3.
[29] To address the issue raised in the present paper for
assessing the effect of this increasing trend, which is generally referred to as global warming, on the annual rainfall
trend of all India and its four important subregions, the
statistical analysis is performed in sections 4.1 and 4.2.

Figure 3. Trend of annual mean anomaly of globally averaged monthly SSTs.

Figure 4. (a) The 10 year moving average curve and

(b) the 10 year moving Cramers tvalue for all India.

4.1. Trend Analysis

[30] The Cramers tvalue moving curve and the 10 year
moving average curve of annual rainfall data is analyzed for
all India and its subregions separately which shows similar
behavior as represented in Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
[31] For annual rainfall of all India, 10 year moving
average curve shows a gradual rise up to the year 1940, and
afterward it decreases up to the year 1949. From the year
1949 onward it again rises and reaches its highest in the year
1955 and decreases afterward, followed by a slight increas-

4 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Figure 5. (a) The 10 year moving average curve and (b) the
10 year moving Cramers tvalue for southwest region.
ing trend beyond 1965. The tk value is significant at 5% level
during the six 10 year periods, 19011910 to 19061915,
for which the mean annual rainfall of all India was the
lowest. In addition to this, one highest average 10 year
period, 19551964, is observed which is also significant at

Figure 6. (a) The 10 year moving average curve and (b) the
10 year moving Cramers tvalue for southeast region.

D06104

Figure 7. (a) The 10 year moving average curve and (b) the
10 year moving Cramers tvalue for central region.
5% level; during this one 10 year period, the mean annual
rainfall of all India is highest.
[32] The 10 year moving average curve of annual rainfall
data, for southwest region, initially shows a decrease that
reaches to the lowest value in the year 1904, and afterward it

Figure 8. (a) The 10 year moving average curve and (b) the
10 year moving Cramers tvalue for northwest region.

5 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

rises up to year 1908. From 1908 onward it starts decreasing

and again attains the lowest value in the year 1918, after
which it shows a gradual rise and reaches the highest value
in the year 1953, and afterward it again starts decreasing.
From 1965 onward it shows a slight increasing trend up to
1974 followed by a decrease up to the year 1982, after
which it again starts increasing. The tk value is significant at
5% level during the five 10 year periods, namely, 1902
1911 to 19041913 and 19171926 to 19181927. For these
five 10 year periods the mean annual rainfall for the southwest region is lowest. In addition to this, the seven highest
average periods are being observed from 19501959 to
19561965, which are significant at 5% level.
[33] For the southeast region, the 10 year moving average
curve of annual rainfall decreases to the lowest value in the
year 1904. From 1904 onward it increases up to the year
1913, after which it oscillates about the mean up to the year
1980. From 1980 onward it shows an increasing trend,
attains the highest value in the year 1989, and remains
constant from then onward. There are two lowest average
10 year periods, 19031912 and 19041913, and three highest
average 10 year periods, 19891998 to 19912000, significant
at 5% level, are observed for the southeast region.
[34] The 10 year moving average curve of annual rainfall
for central region shows an increasing trend and reaches to
the highest value in the year 1936. From then onward it
starts decreasing and reaches to the lowest value in the year
1965 followed by a slight increase before it becomes constant. The tk value was significant at 5% level during the
eight 10 year periods 19171926, 19291938 to 19311940,
and 19331942 to 19361945; during these eight 10 year
periods, the mean annual rainfall for central region is highest.
In addition to this, one lowest average period 19651974,
significant at 5% level, is also observed.
[35] The 10 year moving average curve for the northwest
region reaches to the highest value in the year 1908, followed by a decrease up to 1911, and from then onward
it oscillates about the mean value, as shown in Figure 8a.
The tk value for the northwest region lies between 1.96
(threshold value for the significance of Cramers tvalue at
5% level) throughout the analysis period. This indicates that
during the analysis period, the annual rainfall of northwest
region neither attains the highest (heavy rainfall) nor the
lowest (deficient rainfall) value; that is, the northwest region
received the normal rainfall throughout the analysis period.
[36] The variability analyzed thus show the presence of
some increasing/decreasing trends during certain period of
time for all India and its subregions. Now the question arises
whether there is any increasing/decreasing trend present in
annual rainfall data for all India and its subregions over the
epoch of 100 years (19012000)? And if so, then is it significant or not?
[37] To address the same question, the linear trends were
computed using the linear least squares fitting method, as
shown with red lines in Figures 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a, and 8a. All
India, southwest, southeast, and northwest show an increasing trend, whereas a decreasing trend is observed for the
central region.
[38] In addition to this, MannKendall Statistic is applied
to the annual rainfall data for all India and its subregions to
verify the increasing/decreasing trends obtained earlier by
using the linear least squares fitting technique.

D06104

[39] The results of MannKendall Statistic, S, normalized

test statistic, Z, confidence in trend i.e., statistical probability
(1 p), and nature of trend computed for all India and its
subregions for the analysis period (19012000) of annual
rainfall data has been tabulated in Table 2. The positive
values of MannKendall statistics, S, for all India, southwest, southeast, and northwest regions is an indicator of
an increasing trend, whereas the negative value of S for
central region indicates the decreasing trend. The results
obtained by using the MannKendall Statistic are in agreement with the ones obtained by the linear least squares fitting technique.
[40] Now, to statistically quantify the significance of the
trend, the normalized test statistic, Z, and statistical probability, (1 p), associated with S is also computed and tabulated the confidence in trend and nature of trend columns
of Table 2. The values given are at 95% level of significance. For all India, southwest, southeast, and northwest the
value of Z is positive, whereas for the central region it is
negative, and the statistical probability is less than the level
of significance for all the regions, which indicates the no
trend condition. This means that for all India and its subregions the annual rainfall shows the lack of trend or climate
change signal but definitely contains the coherent multidecadal variability. This simply implies that there is no
detectable effect of global warming on the annual rainfall
trend during the last 10 decades.
[41] The salient features that could be extracted from
Cramers test statistics are the epochs of above and below
normal rainfall observed for all India and its subregions
(shown in Figure 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b). The variability
of epochs as obtained for all India and southwest regions
appears to be small during recent decades (19702000) as
compared to the earlier period. For the central region, the
above and belownormal epochs tend to last for approximately 4 decades. It shows multidecadal variability with an
approximate periodicity of about 8090 years. In addition to
this, the variability during the earlier and the recent decades
appears to be same for this region. Such epochs have been
previously observed in case of ISMR for all India, the
homogeneous Indian region and the west central Indian
region by Goswami [2005] which were reported to last for
about 3 decades. It was also reported that the eastern
equatorial Pacific SST (Nio 3) also shows a similar interdecadal variability but is approximately out of phase with
that of the summer monsoon rainfall. Kripalani and Kumar
[2004] also observed such epochs for the northeast monsoon
rainfall (NEMR) which tends to last for about a decade or
two. This variability appears to be enhanced (suppressed)
during the decades when the Indian Ocean dipole is active
(inactive).
[42] In the present study, the observed interdecadal variability of annual rainfall for all India and its subregions
may be attributed to the interdecadal variability of eastern
equatorial Pacific SST (Nio 3) or Indian Ocean Dipole
Mode.
[43] The ACC for all India and its subregions are shown
in Figures 9a9e. The oscillatory nature of annual rainfall
data series for all India and its subregions also conforms
to that of Correlogram [Parthasarathy and Dhar, 1975;
Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1984] as well. Although, the
high ACC values for lags 2, 27, and 42 and low ACC values

6 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

D06104

Figure 9. Correlogram analysis for (a) all India, (b) southwest, (c) southeast, (d) central, and (e) northwest regions.
for lags 18, 36, and 41 were observed for all India, none of
these values is significant at 95% level. The Correlogram of
southwest region shows high ACC values for lags 1, 2, and
15 and low ACC values for lags 11, 25, 26, and 41, and out
of these the values at lags 15 and 41 are only significant at
95% level. In the case of the southeast region, no significant
ACC value is obtained. Besides this, the values are continuously negative from lag 7 to 11 for this region. The
correlogram of the central region shows many high ACC
values for lags 10, 17, 19, and 27 and low values for lags 18,
32, 40, and 43 where the ACC values at lags 17, 19, and 43
are significant at 95% level. The ACC values for the central
region are continuously positive from lag 2 to 14, but are not
significant. The correlogram for northwest region also
contains many high (17, 33) and low (22, 32, 41, and 43)
ACC values, out of which only the ACC value at lag 17 is
95% significant.

[44] In order to understand the possible ocean forcing

mechanisms for decadal rainfall variability, the correlations of the decadally filtered rainfall indexes with SSTs
were analyzed. The map of decadal correlation coefficient
between summer monsoon rainfall for the southwest region
and the Hadley SST (as shown in Figure 10b) shows the
interdecadal Pacific oscillations (IPO) [Parker et al., 2007]
and Atlantic multidecadal Oscillations (AMO) [Parker
et al., 2007] like patterns.
[45] The large correlations in the North Atlantic are referred
as AMO and such a link was proposed by Goswami et al.
[2006], Zhang and Delworth [2006] and Li et al. [2008].
The physical mechanism responsible, outlined by Goswami
et al. [2006], is that the AMO in its positive phase (that is
the positive anomalies in the North Atlantic) increases the
meridional tropospheric temperature gradient over the whole
Northern Hemisphere, including Eurasia, and may cause the
late withdrawal of Indian summer monsoon, which causes

7 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

D06104

Figure 10. Maps of decadal correlation coefficients between summer monsoon rainfall and SSTs for (a)
all India, (b) southwest, (c) southeast, (d) central, and (e) northwest regions.
increase of the seasonal mean Indian monsoon rainfall. The
large anticorrelations in the tropical and South Indian Ocean
indicate that cooling in that region tends to increase the
ISMR. The possible mechanisms of how this tropical SST
pattern influences the decadal ISMR variability are discussed by Krishnamurthy and Goswami [2000]. In brief, it
could be inferred that the cooling in the tropical Indian and
Pacific oceans leads to lowlevel equatorial convergence in
the Indian Ocean that influences the local Walker and
Hadley circulation in such a way as to modulate precipitation over the Indian subcontinent by causing lowlevel divergence there. Recently, Kucharski et al. [2009] confirmed the
proposed SSTIndian monsoon teleconnections using the
model simulations.
[46] The maps of decadal correlation coefficients between
summer monsoon (JuneJulyAugustSeptember (JJAS))
rainfall and SSTs (JJAS) for all India, southwest, southeast,
central, and northwest regions are shown in Figures 10a10e.
The correlation of decadal variability of summer monsoon

rainfall and that of AMO is highly positive for all India,

southwest, and central regions as shown Figures 10a10d,
whereas the decadal correlation of summer monsoon rainfall and IPO is highly negative for southwest and northwest
regions as shown in Figures 10b and 10e. The correlations
of the decadal variability of AMO index and IPO index
with decadal variability of rainfall indices for all India and
its subregions are tabulated in Table 3. This signifies that
Table 3. Correlations of the Decadal Variability of AMO and IPO
With Decadal Variability of the Rainfall for All India and Its
Subregions
Region

AMO

IPO

All India
Southwest
Southeast
Central
Northwest

0.5028
0.4689
0.1901
0.4702
0.1662

0.1803
0.5002
0.0036
0.1853
0.4389

8 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

D06104

Figure 11. Decadal variability of rainfall over southwest region along with the decadal variability of
AMO and IPO indices. The unit of AMO and IPO is C, while that of decadal variability of rainfall is
millimeters.
AMO affects the rainfall of all India, southwest, and central
regions on an interdecadal basis, since high correlations are
found for these regions. This means that for all India,
southwest, and central regions, the multidecadal wet period
is in phase with the positive AMO phase (warm North
Atlantic Ocean) and dry periods are in phase with negative
AMO phase. This implies that the warm phase of AMO and
cold phase of IPO cause the enhancement of the rainfall for
the southwest region, as shown in Figure 11. On the other
hand, in the case of all India and central regions only the
warm phase of AMO plays a significant role in enhancing
the rainfall in the respective regions. In addition to this, the
southern Indian Ocean shows strong anticorrelation in SST
and monsoon rainfall for the southwest region as shown in
Figure 10b, indicating that cooling in that region tends to
increase the rainfall over the southwest region.
[47] In the case of the central region, due to the dipole
structure in the North Atlantic, there is AMO contribution to
rainfall decadal variability. On the other hand, all the field is

dominated by negative values, which is consistent with the

effect that in the central region a downward trend is
observed (though it is not significant at 95% as against 90%
level of significance because of fewer data points) in rainfall
and positive trend in global SST. Figures 12a and 12b show
the decadal variability of AMO and IPO indices with rainfall
indices for all India and its subregions.
4.2. Spectral Analysis
[48] As anticipated, the annual cycle and its multiples
(semiannual, terannual, and quadannual), dominates the
power spectra for all India and its subregions during the
analysis period (19012000), due to which the high
frequency cycles are suppressed (figures not shown). Therefore, in order to see the relative strength of other cycles, the
spectra are reconstructed after excluding the annual and its
multiples for all India, southwest, southeast, central, and
northwest regions as shown in Figures 13a13e. The red,
pink, blue, and green lines depict the red noise spectra, 90%,

Figure 12. Decadal variability of rainfall indices for all India and its subregions with (a) AMO and
(b) IPO indices. The unit of AMO and IPO is C, while that of rainfall indices is millimeters.
9 of 13

D06104

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Figure 13. Power spectra after excluding the annual, semiannual, terannual, and quadannual cycles,
during the analysis period 19012000, for (a) all India, (b) southwest, (c) southeast, (d) central, and
(e) northwest regions.

Table 4. Power Spectra in Each Decade of Rainfall Over all

Indiaa

Table 5. Power Spectra in Each Decade of Rainfall Over

Southwesta

Period

Period

Decade

1020
Day

2030
Day

3040
Day

4050
Day

5080
Day

Decade

19011910
19111920
19211930
19311940
19411950
19511960
19611970
19711980
19811990
19912000

17.2b
19.9b
17.9b
11.5b
17.5b
19.6b
18.6b
16.3b
17.7b
17.9b

28.4b
27.3b
21.4b
20.2b
29.1b
28.2b
25.8b
27.1b
25.8b
24.6b

32.2b
34.1c
36.1b
39.7b
31.7b
32.2b
33.1b (HI)
31.9b
39.7b
30.9b

46.9c
40.6b
43.5
40.6c
43.5
45.1

44b
42.9c
40.6b

53.9c

72.2b
53.1c
72.2c
51.6

72.2

19011910
19111920
19211930
19311940
19411950
19511960
19611970
19711980
19811990
19912000

a
Entries without footnotes: 90% CL. HI, high intensity; CL, confidence
level.
b
Indicates 99% CL.
c
Indicates 95% CL.

2030
Day

3040
Day

4050
Day

5080
Day

28b
30.3b
49.5b
53.9b
16.3b
18.5b
23.4b
30.8b
44b
51.6c
19.4b
25.6b
38.8b
43.5b
72.2c
18.7b
27.3b
35.7b
47.5c
62.2c
b
b
b
b
17.6
29.1
38.8
49.5
53.1c
15b
26.4b
32.8b
45.7b
61.2,c 52.3b
17.8b
28.9b
36.5b (HI)
45.1b
50.8c
19.3b
27.8b
39.2b
44b
50.1b
16.9b
25.8b
32.8b
45.1b
51.6b (HI)
38.8b
40.1b (HI)
53.1c
15.6b 25.2b (HI), 27.1b

HI, high intensity; CL, confidence level.

Indicates 99% CL.
Indicates 95% CL.

10 of 13

1020
Day

D06104

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Table 6. Power Spectra in Each Decade of Rainfall Over Southeasta
Period
Decade
19011910
19111920
19211930
19311940
19411950
19511960
19611970
19711980
19811990
19912000

1020 Day
b

17.6
19.9,b 17b
19.4b
19.6b
19.4b
17.8b (HI)
17.2b
18.5b
15.3b
18.9b

2030 Day

3040 Day

28
29.6,b 27.3,b 25.4b
20.6b
29.3b
29.1b
29.1b
21.1b
24.2b
24.4b
20.2b

39.2, 30.3
32.2b
30.1b
35b
34.7b
33.4b
37.6b
39.7b (HI)
39.7,b 36.1,b 33.1,b 30.1b
32.2b (HI)

4050 Day

5080 Day

60.2
54.7c
54.7

73.7
56.4
53.1c
51.6b
59.2, 50.8

44
43b
43c
42c
49.5
45.7b
49.5b
44.6c
41b
46.9c

Entries without footnotes: 90% CL. HI, high intensity; CL, confidence level.
Indicates 99% CL.
c
Indicates 95% CL.
b

95%, and 99% confidence levels, respectively, for each

power spectrum. The spectral peaks and not the troughs are
of interest; therefore only the upper limits of the confidence
interval, which corresponds to the confidence levels (one
sided limits of confidence intervals), are plotted [Weedon,
2003]. Spectral peaks, emerging above the confidence levels,
attached to the estimated spectral background can be easily
identified.
[49] The intraseasonal oscillations of ISMR are naturally
occurring component of our coupled oceanatmosphere
system and represent a broadband spectrum with periods
between 10 and 90 days but have two preferred oscillations [Krishnamurti and Bhalme, 1976; Krishnamurti and
Ardanuy, 1980; Yasunari, 1980]: one is the MaddenJulian
[Madden and Julian, 1971] and the other is quasibiweekly.
The MJO, also known as the 3060 day, 4050 day, and
tropical intraseasonal oscillation [Wang, 2006], is the dominant component of the intraseasonal variability in the tropical atmosphere which basically consists of largescale
coupled pattern in atmospheric circulation and deep convection, propagating eastward, slowly through the Indian
and Pacific oceans, where the sea surface is warm. The other
is the quasibiweekly periodicity, also known as 1020 day
oscillations, associated with the westward moving waves or
synopticscale convective systems generated over the warm
Bay of Bengal, propagating inland and contributing the substantial rain.
[50] It can be observed that the reconstructed spectra of
all India and its subregions, shown in Figures 13a13e,
contains the dominant as well as significant cycles, namely,
1020 day, 2030 day, 3040 day, 4050 day, and 50
80 day, which can be clearly distinct as enormous peaks in
their respective spectra.
[51] In order to determine the dominance and significance
of such peaks on decadal basis and its variability, if any, the
decadal spectral analysis is also performed for all India and
its subregions (figures not shown). The dominant peak lying
between different periods for all India and its subregions
along with their confidence level for all decades is tabulated
in Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
[52] As far as lowfrequency components are considered,
the power spectra of rainfall for all India as well as for its
subregions in each decade does not exhibit much variation
on decadal scale during the last 10 decades.

[53] The basic difference between the decadal power

spectra of all India and its subregions, lies in the ratio of
strength of annual and other cycles that represent intraseasonal oscillations. The dominant as well as the significant cycles lying between the periods 1020 day, 2030 day,
3040 day, and 4050 day are highly variable on interdecadal basis. The dominant cycle lying between 50 and
80 day is also highly variable on interdecadal basis for all
India and its subregions, except the central region, in which
the cycles lying between this period range is significant only
for first (19011910), second (19111920), and seventh
(19611970) decades.
[54] In contrast, the higherfrequency components i.e.,
the 80th or nearby harmonics corresponding to the cycle of
4050 day (MJO), has been noticed for all the regions. But
for southwest and southeast regions, the intensity of this
cycle is very high, especially for southwest region, and is
significant above 95% and 99% levels. For all India, the
intensity of this cycle is very weak and not highly significant. But during the last 3 decades the intensity of the
dominant cycles lying between this range has increased and
is significant at 95% and 99% levels. For the central region
also, this cycle is not highly significant as compared to the
southwest and for the fifth (19411950) decade the significance of this cycle is not even 90%, whereas for the

Table 7. Power Spectra in Each Decade of Rainfall Over Centrala

Period
Decades

1020
Day

2030
Day

3040
Day

4050
Day

5080
Day

19011910
19111920
19211930
19311940
19411950
19511960
19611970
19711980
19811990
19912000

18b
19.7b
18.8b
15b
14.3b
19.6b
17.4b
18.6,b 13b
19.2b
18.7b

25.2b
27.8b
21.4b
23.9b
27.6b
27.8b
29.8b (HI)
22.7b
24.2b
22.8b

32.2b
34.4c
35.4c
39.7c
31.7b
32.8b
33.1b
33.1c
31.7b
33.4c

46.9b
44.6
43.5,c 40.6c
44.6

44.6
40.6c
44.6
42
40.1

53.9b
54.7

50.8

a
Entries without footnotes: 90% CL. HI, high intensity; CL, confidence
level.
b
Indicates 99% CL.
c
Indicates 95% CL.

11 of 13

D06104

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

Table 8. Power Spectra in Each Decade of Rainfall Over Northwesta
Period
Decade
19011910
19111920
19211930
19311940
19411950
19511960
19611970
19711980
19811990
19912000

1020 Day
b

17.6
16b
18b
19.3b
17.3b
14.2b
19.6b
18.8b
16.6b
19.3b

2030 Day

3040 Day

26
27.3b
26.2b
24.2b
23b
26.2b
28.7b
29.3,b 27.1b
28.4,b 26.4,b 20.9b
23.4b

37.2
32.8b
32.8b
39.7b
30.3c
30.9c
33.1b
35,b 31.9b
31.7b
36.8b

4050 Day
b

46.9
43.5
45.1c
46.9b
47.5c
45.7c
46.9c
45.7c

45.1,b 40.1b

5080 Day
53.9b

51.6b
64.5,b 54.7b
64.5,c 54.7c
50.2c
63.3,c 53.9b
52.3
63.3c
51.6

Entries without footnotes: 90% CL. HI, high intensity; CL, confidence level.
Indicates 99% CL.
c
Indicates 95% CL.
b

northwest region this cycle is 99% significant only for the

first (19011910), fourth (19311940), and tenth (1991
2000) decade. Thus it can be concluded that, the 4050 day
oscillations is mainly associated with the southern Indian
region, namely southwest and southeast.
[55] For each decade of all India, southwest, and southeast regions, the dominant cycle lying between 30 and 40 day
periods is 99% significant, except for the second decade
of all India. For some decades of southwest and southeast
regions in which the MJO is much more prominent,
the intensity of this 3040 day cycle is even more than the
4050 day cycle present in that decade. The 3040 day
oscillation has been found to be a gradually increasing factor
on decadal scale during the last 4 decades of the southeast
region. This cycle was also observed for the other two
subregions. The dominant cycle and its significance for
these two regions can be seen from the 3040 day column of
Tables 7 and 8.
[56] The dominant cycles lying between the 1020 and
2030 day are also 99% significant for each decadal spectrum of all India and its subregions. The intensity of 20
30 day cycle is quite high for the last decade (19912000) of
southwest and central regions.

5. Conclusion
[57] In this paper we have explored the trend and spectral
analysis of rainfall, over India, during 19012000. The gross
features of rainfall variability are captured both by 10 year
moving average and Cramers tvalue curves for all India
and its subregions. The 10 year moving average of annual
rainfall for all India as well as southwest, southeast, and
central regions shows significant fluctuations attaining highest
averages (heavy rainfall) and lowest averages (deficient rainfall). The all India has one highest/six lowest, southwest
has seven highest/five lowest, southeast has three highest/
two lowest, and central has eight highest/one lowest events
recorded. However, for the northwest subregion, the mean
annual rainfall neither attains highest average nor the lowest,
signifying normal rainfall throughout the analysis period.
[58] No significant trend is discernable during the last
10 decades, when the linear least squares fitting method and
MannKendall statistic to identify the trend and the normalized test statistic and statistical probability to quantify

the significance of the trend are applied on the annual

rainfall data for all India and its subregions. The correlogram of all India and its subregions show that the annual
rainfall data series is somewhat oscillatory in nature. Further, it shows the presence of a 15 year cycle for the
southwest region and a 17 year cycle for the central and the
northwest regions. The central region also contains a cycle
of 19 years.
[59] To understand the variability physically, the correlation of decadal variability of ISMR with that of SSTs was
computed, and it can be inferred that the warm phase of
AMO and cold phase of IPO causes the enhancement of the
rainfall for the southwest region, whereas in the case of all
India and central regions, only the warm phase of AMO
plays a significant role in enhancing the rainfall. The
southern Indian Ocean shows strong anticorrelation in SST
and monsoon rainfall for the southwest region, indicating
that cooling in that region also tends to increase the rainfall
over the southwest region. Due to the presence of dipole
structure in North Atlantic for the central region, there is
AMO contribution to rainfall decadal variability. On the
other hand, the entire field is dominated by negative values
which are consistent with the effect that in the central
region, a downward trend is observed in rainfall and a
positive trend in global SST. Thus the trend analysis in the
present case also confirms the physical phenomenon on
largescale spatiotemporal SST variability.
[60] As far as lowfrequency components are concerned,
the power spectra in each decade for all India as well as for
its subregions does not exhibit much variation on decadal
scale during the last 10 decades, whereas the highfrequency
cycles are highly variable on an interdecadal basis. The 40
50 day oscillations referred to as MJO are mainly concerned
with southern India. The 3040 day oscillations have been
found to be a gradually increasing factor on decadal scale
during the last 4 decades for the southeast region.
[61] Acknowledgments. We acknowledge our sincere thanks to
National Center of Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa, for the financial
support. We are also heartily grateful to V. Krishnamurthy, T. Delsole,
and Fred Kucharski for fruitful discussions in understanding the issues that
helped us a lot in improving the manuscript. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments, which improved our manuscript substantially.

12 of 13

D06104

JOSHI AND PANDEY: ANNUAL RAINFALL ANALYSIS OVER INDIA

References
Gilbert, R. O. (1987), Statistical Methods for Environmental Pollution
Monitoring, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
Goswami, B. N. (2005), Interdecadal variability, in The Asian Monsoon,
edited by B. Wang, chap. 7, pp. 295327, Springer, Berlin.
Goswami, B. N., M. S. Madhusoodanan, C. P. Neema, and D. Sengupta
(2006), A physical mechanism for North Atlantic SST influence on the
Indian summer monsoon, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L02706, doi:10.1029/
2005GL024803.
Hartmann, D. L., and J. R. Gross (1988), Seasonal variability of the 4050
day oscillation in wind and rainfall in the tropics, J. Atmos. Sci., 45(19),
26802702, doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1988)045<2680:SVOTDO>2.0.
CO;2.
Hartmann, D. L., and M. L. Michelsen (1989), Intraseasonal periodicities in
Indian rainfall, J. Atmos. Sci., 46(18), 28382862, doi:10.1175/15200469(1989)046<2838:IPIIR>2.0.CO;2.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001), Climate Change 2001:
The Scientific BasisContributions of working Group I to the Third
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
edited by J. T. Houghton et al., 881 pp., Cambridge Univ. Press,
Cambridge, U. K.
Kane, R. P. (1995), Quasibiennial and quasitriennial oscillations in the
summer monsoon rainfall of the meteorological subregions of India,
Mon. Weather Rev., 123, 11781184, doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1995)
123<1178:QBAQTO>2.0.CO;2.
Kishtawal, C. M., and T. N. Krishnamurti (2001), Diurnal variation of
summer rainfall over Taiwan and its detection using TRMM observations, J. Appl. Meteorol., 40, 331344, doi:10.1175/1520-0450(2001)
040<0331:DVOSRO>2.0.CO;2.
Kripalani, R. H., and P. Kumar (2004), Northeast monsoon rainfall variability over south peninsular India visvis the Indian Ocean dipole
mode, Int. J. Climatol., 24, 12671282, doi:10.1002/joc.1071.
Kripalani, R. H., A. Kulkarni, and S. V. Singh (1997), Association of the
Indian summer monsoon with the Northern Hemisphere midlatitude circulation, Int. J. Climatol., 17, 10551067, doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088
(199708)17:10<1055::AID-JOC180>3.0.CO;2-3.
Krishnamurti, T. N., and P. Ardanuy (1980), The 10 to 20day westward
propagating mode and breaks in the monsoons, Tellus, 32, 1526,
doi:10.1111/j.2153-3490.1980.tb01717.x.
Krishnamurti, T. N., and H. N. Bhalme (1976), Oscillations of a monsoon
system. Part I. Observational aspects, J. Atmos. Sci., 33(10), 19371954,
doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1976)033<1937:OOAMSP>2.0.CO;2.
Krishnamurthy, V., and B. N. Goswami (2000), Indian MonsoonENSO
relationship on interdecadal timescale, J. Clim., 13, 579595,
doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<0579:IMEROI>2.0.CO;2.
Krishnamurthy, V., and J. Shukla (2000), Intraseasonal and interannual variability of rainfall over India, J. Clim., 13, 43664377, doi:10.1175/15200442(2000)013<0001:IAIVOR>2.0.CO;2.
Krishnamurthy, V., and J. Shukla (2007), Intraseasonal and seasonally persisting patterns of Indian Monsoon rainfall, J. Clim., 20, 320,
doi:10.1175/JCLI3981.1.
Kucharski, F., A. Bracco, J. H. Yoo, A. Tompkins, L. Feudale, P. Ruti, and
A. DellAquila (2009), A GillMatsunotype mechanism explains the
Tropical Atlantic influence on African and Indian Monsoon rainfall,
Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 135, 569579, doi:10.1002/qj.406.
Laughlin, G. P., H. Zuo, J. Walcott, and A. L. Bugg (2003), The rainfall
reliability wizardA new tool to rapidly analyse spatial rainfall reliability with examples, Environ. Modell. Software, 18, 4957, doi:10.1016/
S1364-8152(02)00037-3.
Lawson, M. P., R. C. Bailing Jr., A. J. Peters, and D. C. Rundquist (1981),
Spatial analysis of secular temperature fluctuations, J. Climatol., 1,
325332, doi:10.1002/joc.3370010405.
Li, S., J. Perlwitz, X. Quan, and M. P. Hoerling (2008), Modelling the
influence of North Atlantic multidecadal warmth on the Indian summer
rainfall, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L05804, doi:10.1029/2007GL032901.
Lihua, M., H. Yanben, and Y. Zhiqiang (2007), The possible influence of
solar activity on Indian summer monsoon rainfall, Appl. Geophys., 4(3),
231237, doi:10.1007/s11770-007-0029-4.
Luk, K. C., J. E. Ball, and A. Sharma (2001), An application of artificial
neural networks for rainfall forecasting, Math. Comput. Modell., 33,
683693, doi:10.1016/S0895-7177(00)00272-7.

D06104

Madden, R. A., and P. R. Julian (1971), Detection of a 4050 day oscillation in the zonal wind in the tropical Pacific, J. Atmos. Sci., 28(5),
702708, doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1971)028<0702:DOADOI>2.0.CO;2.
Mehta, V. M., and K. M. Lau (1997), Influence of solar irradiance on the
Indian Monsoon: ENSO relationship at decadalmultidecadal time scales,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 24(2), 159162, doi:10.1029/96GL03778.
Mooley, D. A., and B. Parthasarathy (1984), Fluctuations in allIndia Summer Monsoon rainfall during 18711978, Clim. Change, 6, 287301,
doi:10.1007/BF00142477.
Munot, A. A., and D. R. Kothawale (2000), Intraseasonal, interannual
and decadal scale variability in summer monsoon rainfall over India,
Int. J. Climatol., 20, 13871400, doi:10.1002/1097-0088(200009)
20:11<1387::AID-JOC540>3.0.CO;2-Z.
Murakami, M. (1977), Spectrum analysis relevant to Indian monsoon, Pure
Appl. Geophys., 115(56), 11451166, doi:10.1007/BF00874404.
Parker, D., C. Folland, A. Scaife, J. Knight, A. Colman, P. Baines, and
B. Dong (2007), Decadal to multidecadal variability and the climate
change background, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D18115, doi:10.1029/
2007JD008411.
Parthasarathy, B., and O. N. Dhar (1975), Studies of trends and periodicities of rainfall over Madhya Pradesh, Proc. Indian Natl. Sci. Acad.,
Part A, 42, 7380.
Parthasarathy, B., K. K. Rupa, and A. A. Munot (1991), Evidence of
secular variations in Indian monsoon rainfall circulation relationships,
J. Clim., 4, 927938, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1991)004<0927:EOSVII>
2.0.CO;2.
Peters, O., C. Hertlein, and K. Christensen (2002), A complexity view of
rainfall, Phys. Rev. Lett., 88(1), 14.
Rajeevan, M., J. Bhate, and A. K. Jaswal (2008), Analysis of variability
and trends of extreme rainfall events over India using 104 years of
gridded daily rainfall data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L18707, doi:10.1029/
2008GL035143.
Rangarajan, G. K. (1994), Singular spectral analysis of homogeneous
Indian monsoon (HIM) rainfall, J. Earth Syst. Sci., 103(4), 439448.
Rayner, N. A., D. E. Parker, E. B. Horton, C. K. Folland, L. V. Alexander,
D. P. Rowell, E. C. Kent, and A. Kaplan (2003), Global analyses of sea
surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since
the late nineteenth century, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D14), 4407,
doi:10.1029/2002JD002670.
Shepard, D. (1968), A twodimensional interpolation function for irregularly spaced data, paper presented at 23rd National Conference, Assoc.
Comput. Mach., New York.
Shukla, J. (1987), Interannual variability of monsoons, in Monsoons, edited
by J. S. Fein and P. L. Stephens, pp. 399463, John Wiley, Hoboken.
N. J.
Vijayakumar, R., and J. R. Kulkarni (1995), The variability of the interannual oscillations of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, Adv. Atmos.
Sci., 12(1), 95102, doi:10.1007/BF02661291.
Wang, B. (2006), The Asian Monsoon, Praxis, Chichester, U. K.
Weedon, G. P. (2003), Time Series Analysis and Cyclostratigraphy, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U. K., doi:10.1017/CBO9780511535482.
Wilks, D. S. (1995), Statistical Methods in Atmospheric Sciences: An
Introduction, Int. Geophys. Ser., vol. 59, edited by R. Dmowska and
J. R. Holton, Academic, San Diego, Calif.
Wu, R., and B. Wang (2002), A contrast of the East Asian Summer Monsoon
and ENSO relationship between 19621977 and 19781993, J. Clim., 15,
32663279, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<3266:ACOTEA>2.0.CO;2.
Yasunari, T. (1980), A quasistationary appearance of 3040day period
in the cloudiness fluctuations during the summer monsoon over India,
J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn., 58, 225229.
Zhang, R., and T. L. Delworth (2006), Impact of Atlantic multidecadal
oscillations on India/Sahel rainfall and Atlantic hurricanes, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 33, L17712, doi:10.1029/2006GL026267.
M. K. Joshi and A. C. Pandey, K. Banerjee Centre of Atmospheric
and Ocean Studies, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of
Allahabad, Allahabad 211002, India. (manishkumarjoshi@gmail.com;
dr.avinashcpandey@gmail.com)

13 of 13