Monsoon pattern shifting rapidly: Experts
KOLKATA: The pattern of monsoon rainfall in India may see a major shift by the end of this century with southern India likely to register increase in extreme rainfall, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, in West Bengal, have found.
The researchers also expect rainfall to increase in the Arabian Sea and south-Asian countries, including Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia.
“In the worst-case scenario of climate change, rainfall could increase by 2.7 mm per day in north India with the Himalayan foothills expected to receive the heaviest rain. In south India, rainfall could increase by 18.5 mm per day with the Western Ghats expected to be affected the most,” said Rajib Maity, a professor of civil engineering at IIT Kharagpur, who led the study.
The scenario could play out towards the end of the century, between 2071 and 2100. The researchers analysed data of Indian Summer Monsoon precipitation for close to five decades (1971 – 2017), considering the period between 1930 and 1970 as the base. In meteorological terms, fifty years, the time it will take for the change to manifest itself, isn’t much. And the change itself, could have a significant bearing on cropping patterns in a country where much of the agriculture is still rain-fed. “South Asia, as we know, despite advances in irrigation systems, is highly dependent on the monsoons. Results of this study will be useful to the designers of water infrastructure and agricultural communities, especially in the southern parts of India and Himalayan foothills, to prompt a possible change in design criteria and agricultural practices including cropping pattern,” Virendra Tewari, director of IIT Kharagpur said, in a statement issued by the institute.