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Disentangling sea-surface temperature and anthropogenic aerosol influences on recent trends in South Asian monsoon rainfall

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Abstract

Recent studies point to combined effects of changes in regional land-use, anthropogenic aerosol forcing and sea surface temperature (SST) gradient on declining trends in the South Asian monsoon (SAM). This study attempted disentangling the effects produced by changes in SST gradient from those by aerosol levels in an atmospheric general circulation model. Two pairs of transient ensemble simulations were made, for a 40-year period from 1971 to 2010, with evolving versus climatological SSTs and with anthropogenic aerosol emissions fixed at 1971 versus 2010, in each case with evolution of the other forcing element, as well as GHGs. Evolving SST was linked to a widespread feedback on increased surface temperature, reduced land–sea thermal contrast and a weakened Hadley circulation, with weakening of cross-equatorial transport of moisture transport towards South Asia. Increases in anthropogenic aerosol levels (1971 versus 2010), led to an intensification of drying in the peninsular Indian region, through several regional pathways. Aerosol forcing induced north–south asymmetries in temperature and sea-level pressure response, and a cyclonic circulation in the Bay of Bengal, leading to an easterly flow, which opposes the monsoon flow, suppressing moisture transport over peninsular India. Further, aerosol induced decreases in convection, vertically integrated moisture flux convergence, evaporation flux and cloud fraction, in the peninsular region, were spatially congruent with reduced convective and stratiform rainfall. Overall, evolution of SST acted through a weakening of cross-equatorial moisture flow, while increases in aerosol levels acted through suppression of Arabian Sea moisture transport, as well as, of convection and vertical moisture transport, to influence the suppression of SAM rainfall.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Centre of Excellence in Climate Studies (IITB-CoECS) project of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India. The ECHAM6-HAM simulations were performed on the IITB-CoECS HPC. We acknowledge Dr. S. Sajani and Dr. K. Rajendran from CSIR-4PI, Bangalore, India for their technical assistance in model porting and simulation set-up at IITB.

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  1. Interdiciplinary Program in Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400 076, India

    Nitin Patil, Chandra Venkataraman, Kaushik Muduchuru, Subimal Ghosh & Arpita Mondal

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, India

    Chandra Venkataraman

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, India

    Subimal Ghosh & Arpita Mondal

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Correspondence to Chandra Venkataraman.

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Patil, N., Venkataraman, C., Muduchuru, K. et al. Disentangling sea-surface temperature and anthropogenic aerosol influences on recent trends in South Asian monsoon rainfall. Clim Dyn 52, 2287–2302 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4251-y

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