Essay on Monsoon
Monsoon
Onset dates and prevailing wind currents of the southwest summer and northeast winter monsoons.
Regional variation in rainfall across India. The monsoon season delivers four-fifths of the country's precipitation.
The southwest summer monsoon, a four-month period when massive convective thunderstorms dominate India's weather, is Earth's most productive wet season.[31] A product of southeast trade winds originating from a high-pressure mass centered over the southern Indian Ocean, the monsoonal torrents supply over 80% of India's annual rainfall.[32] Attracted by a low-pressure region centered over South Asia, the mass spawns surface winds that ferry humid air into India from the southwest.[33] These inflows ultimately result from a northward shift of the local jet stream, which itself results from rising summer temperatures over Tibet and the Indian subcontinent. The void left by the jet stream, which switches from a route just south of the Himalayas to one tracking north of Tibet, then attracts warm, humid air.[34]
The main factor behind this shift is the high summer temperature difference between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean.[35] This is accompanied by a seasonal excursion of the normally equatorial intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a low-pressure belt of highly unstable weather, northward towards India.[34] This system intensified to its present strength as a result of the Tibetan Plateau's uplift, which accompanied the Eocene–Oligocene transition event, a major episode of global cooling and aridification which occurred 34–49 Ma.[36]
The southwest monsoon arrives in two branches: the Bay of Bengal branch and the Arabian Sea branch. The latter extends toward a low-pressure area over the Thar Desert and is roughly three times stronger than the Bay of Bengal branch. The monsoon typically breaks over Indian territory by around 25 May, when it lashes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. It strikes the Indian mainland
Onset dates and prevailing wind currents of the southwest summer and northeast winter monsoons.
Regional variation in rainfall across India. The monsoon season delivers four-fifths of the country's precipitation.
The southwest summer monsoon, a four-month period when massive convective thunderstorms dominate India's weather, is Earth's most productive wet season.[31] A product of southeast trade winds originating from a high-pressure mass centered over the southern Indian Ocean, the monsoonal torrents supply over 80% of India's annual rainfall.[32] Attracted by a low-pressure region centered over South Asia, the mass spawns surface winds that ferry humid air into India from the southwest.[33] These inflows ultimately result from a northward shift of the local jet stream, which itself results from rising summer temperatures over Tibet and the Indian subcontinent. The void left by the jet stream, which switches from a route just south of the Himalayas to one tracking north of Tibet, then attracts warm, humid air.[34]
The main factor behind this shift is the high summer temperature difference between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean.[35] This is accompanied by a seasonal excursion of the normally equatorial intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a low-pressure belt of highly unstable weather, northward towards India.[34] This system intensified to its present strength as a result of the Tibetan Plateau's uplift, which accompanied the Eocene–Oligocene transition event, a major episode of global cooling and aridification which occurred 34–49 Ma.[36]
The southwest monsoon arrives in two branches: the Bay of Bengal branch and the Arabian Sea branch. The latter extends toward a low-pressure area over the Thar Desert and is roughly three times stronger than the Bay of Bengal branch. The monsoon typically breaks over Indian territory by around 25 May, when it lashes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. It strikes the Indian mainland