Changes In The Duration-Depth Characteristics Of Indian Monsoon Rainfall During 1951-2000

Abstract

Several previous studies have found that various characteristics of the Indian monsoon rainfall have shown secular changes over the past century. In this study, using a gridded (1degree) daily rainfall dataset, we analyse the spatio-temporal characteristics of the intensity and duration of monsoon (June through September) rainfall for secular changes over the last 50 years. The characteristics of the duration of rain events are described by wet and dry spells. A wet/dry spell is defined as a period of consecutive days with rainfall above/below a particular threshold. We choose to use a threshold that is a function of the local climatological mean, given the spatial heterogeneity of mean monsoon rainfall. The wet and dry spells are then divided into three categories: short [1 to 7 days], moderate [8 to 10 days], long [11 and more days] and analysed for changes over the past 50 years [19512000]. We find that while the number of short duration wet spells show a significant increase over the last 50 years (~15% change), the number of long duration wet spells show a significant decrease (~25%). Furthermore, while the numbers of short duration dry periods have shown a significant increase, the moderate and long duration dry spells do not shown an appreciable change. This increase and decrease in the short and long duration wet spells offset each other and consequently the total number of rainy days during the season has not shown any significant change over the past 50 years. In addition to the duration of wet and dry spells, we also analysed for changes in the accumulated rainfall of the short, medium and long duration wet spells. Our analysis suggests that while the depth of accumulated rainfall in short duration wet spells has shown a significant increase (~20%), the depth of rain in the long duration spells has shown a significant decrease (~30%) in the past fifty years.