A physical mechanism for north Atlantic SST influence on the Indian summer monsoon

(AMO) and multidecadal variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall is unraveled and a long sought physical mechanism linking Atlantic climate and monsoon has been identified. The AMO produces persistent weakening (strengthening) of the meridional gradient of tropospheric temperature (TT) by se...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: B. N. Goswami, M. S. Madhusoodanan, C. P. Neema, D. Sengupta
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.501.2909
http://www.tropmet.res.in/~bng/bngpaper/bng_etal_GRL_2005.pdf
Description
Summary:(AMO) and multidecadal variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall is unraveled and a long sought physical mechanism linking Atlantic climate and monsoon has been identified. The AMO produces persistent weakening (strengthening) of the meridional gradient of tropospheric temperature (TT) by setting up negative (positive) TT anomaly over Eurasia during northern late summer/ autumn resulting in early (late) withdrawal of the south west monsoon and persistent decrease (increase) of seasonal monsoon rainfall. On inter–annual time scales, strong North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) or North Annular mode (NAM) influences the monsoon by producing similar TT anomaly over Eurasia. The AMO achieves the interdecadal modulation of the monsoon by modulating the frequency of occurrence of strong NAO/ NAM events. This mechanism also provides a basis for explaining the observed teleconnection between North Atlantic temperature and the Asian monsoon in