Seasonal relationships between indian summer monsoon rainfall and the southern oscillation

Abstract

AbstractAssociation between the all‐India summer monsoon (June to September) rainfall and an index of the Southern Oscillation (SO) is studied in relation to the vagaries of the monsoon rainfall and the seasonal characteristics of the SO. The Southern Oscillation index (SOI) used is the difference of normalized sea surface pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, two stations located in the core regions of the circulation systems associated with the SO. The data length of 46 years from 1935 to 1980 is used in the detailed examination of the nature of association between these parameters.The SOI values of different months and standard seasons show opposite tendencies during deficient and excess years of all‐India monsoon rainfall. The correlation coefficients (CC) between the all‐India monsoon rainfall series and the SOIs of summer monsoon (JJA), autumn (SON) and winter (DJF) minus spring (MAM) seasons are significant at the 1 per cent level. The correlations have been examined by dividing the series into two equal halves of 23 years and different sliding window widths of 10, 20 and 30 years. The least squares fit line is represented by the equation y (all‐India monsoon rainfall) =85.9 ‐ 2.7x (DJF minus MAM, SOI), the variance explained by this line is about 13 per cent. In view of the large spatial variability of the summer monsoon rainfall the correlations are examined for the rainfall series of various meteorological subdivisions of the country. The CC between the monsoon rainfall of the subdivisions north of 16°N and west of 80°E and the SOI series of DJF minus MAM is significant at the 5 per cent level or above.Potentialities of the SOI of DJF minus MAM, an important premonsoon circulation parameter, are examined for the seasonal prediction of Indian summer monsoon rainfall, and the limitations of single parameter prediction models are discussed.