Trends and extreme value analysis of rainfall pattern over homogeneous monsoon regions of India

Abstract

Trends of pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon rainfall pattern were studied on decadal basis over different homogeneous monsoon regions in India for the period 1871-2008. It is attempted to understand the relation of monsoon rainfall with the global teleconnections of El Nino and La Nina, for which the correlation analysis has been carried out with Darwin pressure and Nino 3.4 sea surface temperature (Nino 3.4 SST). The correlation analysis inferred that the significant correlations were observed when monsoon rainfall is related to ENSO indices on decadal scale than on annual ones. The study also found that the north-west region is more affected by the moderate El Nino years compared to strong El Nino years. The regions Central North-East and North-East could not make any difference among weak, moderate and strong La Nina events. The authors also have carried out the extreme value analysis over different homogeneous monsoon regions of India as well as for whole India. The results show that the return values of rainfall are increasing with the return periods for the forthcoming 10, 20, 50 and 100 years. The heterogeneity in number of threshold years that were recorded for the extreme rainfall over north-east (humid climatic type) and north-west (arid climatic type) described the climate variability. The results of the present study may be useful for the policy makers in understanding the rainfall exceedance in different return periods for planning the risk management strategies.