Variability and Predictability of Summer Monsoon Rainfall over Pakistan

Abstract

Rainfall variability associated with the South Asian Summer Monsoon has increased in recent decades, particularly at the northwestern monsoon margins over Pakistan, leading to more frequent and intense hydro-meteorological extremes that have adversely affected the agrarian economy, water and food security in the country. Devising effective strategies to ensure sustainable development in Pakistan thus requires that the monsoonal rainfall be predicted on an inter-annual scale. Here, we predicted the inter- and intra-annual variability of the monsoonal rainfall over Pakistan and its possible drivers using a linear statistical forecast model of the principal component (PC) regression analysis. For this purpose, highly correlated PCs of the National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) based sea level pressure, horizontal and meridional winds to the observed rainfall for the period 2001–2013 were ingested in a stepwise multiple regression model, which was further validated for the duration of 2014–2015. Our results suggest that featuring correlation coefficient, mean absolute error, mean bias, and root mean square error of 0.75, 42.23, −14.92 and 60.65, respectively, the model exhibits robust skill in predicting the inter-annual monsoonal rainfall variability at its extreme northwestern margins over Pakistan.