Pollution and changes in the trends of rains.

Introduction:

The monsoon, which provides 80 per cent of the total rainfall in the subcontinent and on which India
is completely dependent for its agriculture, is witnessing disturbing changes

There has been a decline in the average total seasonal rain during the period 1980-2011, according
to a new study. The study was carried out by Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the
Stanford University's hub of environment research, and published in the latest issue of Nature
Climate Change. It also found changes in the atmosphere like winds and moisture which are likely to
be responsible for changes in wet and dry spells. They have also found that there is substantial
variability within the monsoon season, including fluctuations between periods of heavy rainfall (wet
spells) and low rainfall (dry spells).

"These fluctuations can cause extreme wet and dry regional conditions that adversely impact
agricultural yields, water resources, infrastructure and human systems," the study said.

According to the study, the mean rainfall during July-August shows a significant (10 per cent
significance level) decreasing trend since 1951 over the monsoon "core" in the data set of the India
Meteorological Department (IMD) which is consistent with reported decrease in all-India rainfall.

This decrease in mean rainfall occurs despite an increase in seasonal mean low-level moisture
convergence and convective available potential energy expected from increased moisture
availability in response to atmospheric warming.

Aim and Objective:

The study revealed that the intensity of rainfall in wet spells during 1981-2011 was significantly
higher than during 1950-1980. At the same time, dry spells became 27 per cent more frequent
during 1981-2011, which had twice as many years with three or more dry spells. Studying the
pattern of monsoons in India since 1980, researchers observed an increase in the intensity of wet
spells and in the frequency of dry spells. "Through a comprehensive statistical analysis of
precipitation observations (1951–2011), we show that statistically significant decreases in peak-
season precipitation over the core monsoon region have cooccurred with statistically significant
increases in daily-scale precipitation variability," the researchers said. The study said the changes in
extreme wet and dry spell characteristics are supported by increases in convective available
potential energy and low-level moisture convergence.

National drought fears loom as India gets deficient rainfall...A quarter of India's land is turning to
desert, government... In contrast, the daily rainfall variability during July-August shows a statistically
significant (5 per cent significance level) increasing trend.
Importance of Project:

As India is a developing country and its more than half population depends on agriculture and it is
totally depend on monsoon so it necessary to understand the trends and changes and effect of
changes in monsoon.

Methodology

The basic data used in the present study are the daily gridded rainfall values prepared by the India
Meteorological Department (IMD) [Rajeevan et al. 2006] based on the measurements at 2140
stations in India for the period 1951–2004. The data are available at grid resolution of 1° × 1°
latitude/longitude for all the 12 months of the year. Rajeevan et al. [2005] have discussed the
method of gridded data preparation in detail. They have interpolated the station data to the specific
grid points using “Objective Analysis”. For this purpose the methodology proposed by Shepard
[1968] has been adopted; wherein in addition to a distance factor a direction factor has also been
introduced while defining the weights for interpolation. On the basis of the temporal and spatial
variations of precipitation, in the present study the entire country has been divided into six
homogeneous rainfall zones as defined by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune
(www.tropmet.res.in). The locator map consisting of the six homogenous rainfall zones such as
peninsular, west central, northwest, northeast, central northeast India and hilly region is given in
Figure 1a. The corresponding regions which cover the grid points of IMD rain data are given in Figure
1b. This study has been conducted separately for each of the six zones and also for the entire
country during each of the four dominant seasons in India.

In this study short rain events are defined as those having continuous rainfall with intensity ≥2.5
mm/d for less than 4 consecutive days. Similarly long spell rain events are those when rainfall occurs
for more than or equal to 4 consecutive days. On the other hand if rainfall <2.5 mm/d occurs for a
day or for more than 1 day consecutively then it is considered as a dry event. In case of rainfall <2.5
mm/d for more than or equal to 4 days continuously the event is defined as a prolonged dry spell.
We have examined these spells of rain events only for the summer monsoon season during the
months of June–September because in this main rainy season all the four categories of rain spells
are usually observed. As per the prevalent practice, IMD uses pentad rainfall values by taking the
average of precipitation over 5 consecutive days. In this study we have used the minimum duration
of a long rain event as 4 as well as 5 consecutive days and found marginal difference in the results.
Hence, for the convenience of defining short spells, we have taken 4 as the dividing line instead of 5
days. It may be mentioned here that such categorization is made for every grid box of 1° × 1° size
over the entire Indian landmass as well as for every grid box of each homogeneous zone. Also the
total number of a particular type of event for a region is considered as the sum total of the number
of such events occurring at all the grid boxes lying in that region. Time series of the individual events
are examined for the entire 54 years of study and subjected to trend analysis. The calculation of
trend statistics has been done using both linear and Mann-Kendall schemes and the significance of
linear trend is tested using t score. In this study, the changes noticed in the rainfall characteristics
are associated with the weakening of the summer monsoon circulation. Further, the wind fields in
the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) Reanalysis-1 data set have been used to examine the weakening of the monsoon circulation.
Observation:

Moderate Rainfall Values Defined as Inverse of the Gamma Cumulative Distribution for Probability
≥0.4 to <0.99a

SeasonsAll India Peninsular West Central Northwest Northeast Hilly Region

Central Northeast

a Rainfall values given in mm/d.

Winter 7.8–45.8 7.7–48.4 6.5–32.1 6.3–31.1 6.4–31.5 8.8–53.9

7.0–36.9

Premonsoon 8.3–50.8 8.3–53.6 6.2–32.7 6.3–35.2 9.2–55.1

8.7–54.1 7.0–36.6

Monsoon 10.7–78.1 10.7–78.0 10.7–78.8 9.9–73.1 11.4–80.6

10.5–83.3 10.5–72.8

Postmonsoon 9.2–65.1 10.0–70.6 8.5–53.6 8.2–59.2 9.3–67.1

8.6–59.4 9.3–72.0

Annual 9.9–71.3 10.1–72.4 10.1–73.8 9.4–69.3 10.4–72.4 9.6–69.5

9.8–68.3

In the premonsoon months of March–May, the threshold value of rainfall in a heavy rain day is the
maximum for the northeast at 55.1 mm/d. In order of magnitude of the threshold rainfall, the
regions close to the northeast are the hilly region and the peninsular India. Next comes the
threshold value of 50.8 mm/d for the whole of India. This value is not very much away from those in
the northeast, hilly, and peninsular India. However, the threshold values of heavy rain per day are
less in the central northeast, northwest, and west central India. The threshold values in low rain days
in different regions of India follow the same increasing/decreasing order as those of heavy rain days.
The highest threshold value of rainfall in a low rain day is 9.2 mm/d in the northeast.

Summer Monsoon In India maximum precipitation occurs during the southwest monsoon season
covering the months June–September and hence the threshold values for heavy rainfall per day are
expected to be the highest during this period. As shown in Table 1 precipitation amount lying
between 10.7 and 78 mm/d is termed as moderate rain for peninsular as well as for the entire India.
For northwest, the moderate rain amounts are small lying between 10 and 73 mm/d. For central
northeast the moderate rain events have also small magnitudes lying between 10.5 and 73 mm/d.
For west central, northeast, and hilly regions the corresponding lower and upper bounds are 11 and
79, 12 and 81, and 11 and 83 mm/d, respectively. Magnitudes of low and heavy rain per day can
easily be worked out from the lower and upper bounds, respectively, given in Table 1. On the basis
of these values the numbers of low and heavy rain days are computed for all India as well as for each
homogenous zone.

the time series of heavy (rainfall/day is greater than or equal to the inverse of gamma cumulative
distribution for probability 0.99) and moderate (rainfall per day for inverse of gamma cumulative
distribution for probability between 0.4 and <0.99) rain days, respectively, in summer monsoon
season for six homogenous zones and all India. These results are also summarized schematically in
Figure 3 using the map of India. The linear trend analysis and Mann-Kendall trend statistics show 5%
level of significance in the increasing trend in the heavy rain days in the northeast and also in the
country as a whole. Increasing trends in the numbers of heavy rain days in the northwest and central
northeast are not statistically significant. Remaining three regions show decreasing trends which are
also not statistically significant. On the other hand the right hand panels in Figure 2 in general show
decreasing trends in the moderate rain days in all the regions and for the country as a whole. It may
be noted that decreasing trends in the context of all India and the west central are significant at 5%
level. These results agree well with those reported by Goswami et al. [2006] where they considered
the limiting values for moderate rain day as 5 to 100 mm/d. The frequencies of low rain days
identically decrease as those of moderate rain days and hence the corresponding figures are not
shown here.