Sansad TV Perspective- Monsoon: Changing Patterns

In the series Sansad TV Perspective, we bring you an analysis of the discussion featured on the insightful programme ‘Perspective’ on Sansad TV, on various important topics affecting India and also the world. This analysis will help you immensely for the IAS exam, especially the mains exam, where a well-rounded understanding of topics is a prerequisite for writing answers that fetch good marks.

In this article, we feature a discussion on the changing pattern of the Monsoon in the India.

Guests:

1. Dr. Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General, India Meteorological Department, GoI
2. Dr. Vibha Dhawan, DG, TERI
3. Dr. Rajesh Kumar Mall, Dean and Head, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University

Anchor: Vishal Dahiya

Context:

• While torrential rains have caused floods in rivers at several places destroying infrastructure and extracting a heavy toll on life, the opposite is being witnessed in some other areas, with large areas suffering from drought and shortage of water. There has been a notable variability in the monsoon rains and is being viewed as changing pattern of the Monsoon in the Indian sub-continent.

Details:

• Several districts have had an extreme change in rainfall patterns over the last two weeks indicating temporal variation of the monsoon rainfall with one season.
• As many as 163 districts in Tamil Nadu, pockets of South India and parts of the Indo-Gangetic plain in Uttarakhand, Bengal and Haryana went from witnessing excess rainfall to deficient rainfall in the weeks ending August 10 and August 17.  Rain deficiency in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar remains high for the current monsoon rainfall.
• During the same time period, 167 distrcits in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha went from deficient to excees rainfall. Low pressure systems are the major reason for excess rainfall in Odisha. South and West India have received more than usual rainfall this year.
• Rainfall for the country as a whole for July was 327.7 mm, 17% more than the long period average making it the second highest since 2001 after 2005. 
• Though the overall average rainfall over India remains almost same over the years, there remains a spatial variation in rainfall over the different regions of India. While North-eastern and eastern India has witnessed decreasing amounts of rainfall, Western part of India has witnessed increasing amounts of rainfall.
• There is a marked variability of rainfall within the season itself with number of low and medium rainfall days decreasing and number of heavy rainfall days increasing. Number of rainfall days have decreased over the years. 

Reasons behind the changing pattern of Monsoon:

• Climate change remains a major reason for the changing pattern of Monsoon. 
• Global warming is heating the Arabian sea leading to high evaporation (rising sea surface temperature) and creation of low pressure systems. This is causing excess rainfall in western India.
• Climate change has disturbed the delicate balance of the atmospheric processes as well as the hydrological cycles. This is also contributing to the changing patterns of climatic conditions including that of the Monsoons.
• Some studies have attributed the very heavy rainfall in cities to the heat island effect in these cities.
• Land use patterns and thes presence of aerosols might also be contributing to the changing pattern of Monsoon rainfalls.

Impact of the changing pattern of Monsoon:

• This can lead to extreme climatic events like floods and droughts thus adversely affecting human life.
• The changing patterns will have an impact on the Indian agricultural sector owing to its excessive dependence on monsoon rainfall as a water source.
• The high variation in Monsoon also does not augur well for the water security of India.

Steps to be taken:

• Climate action is necessary to mitigate the impact of changing patterns of Monsoon.

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