Abstract
Several recent studies1–6 have described associations between inter-annual variations of the Indian south-west monsoon and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena, and methods for predicting monsoon rainfall based on these associations have been proposed. Rasmusson and Carpenter5 suggested that sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies appearing along the equatorial Pacific South American coast early in the year can provide useful predictions of Indian monsoon rainfall, while Shukla6 suggested that the change in atmospheric pressure anomalies at Darwin from winter to spring (Northern Hemisphere seasons) was useful. It has also been demonstrated8–11 that SST anomalies in the Indonesia–north Australia region are closely related to the ENSO phenomena. I examine here the relationship between Indian south-west monsoon rainfall and Indonesian–north Australian SST and provide evidence suggesting that SST anomalies in this region can be used to predict Indian monsoon rainfall as accurately as the techniques proposed previously, but using data available several months earlier.
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References
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Nicholls, N. Predicting Indian monsoon rainfall from sea-surface temperature in the Indonesia–north Australia area. Nature 306, 576–577 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/306576a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/306576a0
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