Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Characteristics of Bay of Bengal Monsoon Depressions in the 21st Century

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078756· OSTI ID:1706700
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [1]
  1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  2. BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai
  4. University of Reading
+ Show Author Affiliations
The controversy surrounding the observed trends in the frequency of South Asian Monsoon Depressions (MDs)1-4, the association of MDs with the summer season extremes5,6, and a moisture driven future precipitation response in Global Climate Models (GCMs)7,8 have elevated the importance of understanding climate change impacts on the characteristics of MDs. GCMs exhibit a significant relationship between the long-term mean occurrences of MDs and the strength of the background upper (lower) tropospheric meridional (zonal) winds and atmospheric moisture in the core genesis region of MDs. Likewise, the strength of the meridional tropospheric temperature gradient (MTG) in GCMs determines the trajectories of MDs over land. While monsoon dynamics progressively weakens in the future period, atmospheric moisture exhibits a strong increase, limiting the impact of changes in background dynamics on the frequency of MDs. Moreover, the weakening of the future MTG is many times weaker than its inherent underestimation in the GCMs. Hence the 21st century increase in radiative forcing does not significantly reduce the frequency of MDs or impact their trajectories over land in the GCMs. Although more wet extremes are expected to occur during the MD lifecycle, non-depression day extremes dominate the overall increase in extreme precipitation, which may render the monsoon extremes less predictable in the future.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1706700
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-126414
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 45
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (29)

Assessing reliability of regional climate projections: the case of Indian monsoon journal February 2014
A Multiscale Analysis of the Extreme Weather Events over Western Russia and Northern Pakistan during July 2010 journal May 2012
A Satellite Analysis of Deep Convection, Upper-Tropospheric Humidity, and the Greenhouse Effect journal October 1995
The Asian summer monsoon: an intercomparison of CMIP5 vs. CMIP3 simulations of the late 20th century journal December 2012
Feature Tracking on the Unit Sphere journal December 1995
Adaptive Constraints for Feature Tracking journal June 1999
Decreasing trend in the strength of Tropical Easterly Jet during the Asian summer monsoon season and the number of tropical cyclonic systems over Bay of Bengal journal January 2004
Sources of errors in the simulation of south Asian summer monsoon in the CMIP5 GCMs journal September 2016
Has the number of Indian summer monsoon depressions decreased over the last 30 years? journal November 2014
On the Relationship between Mean Monsoon Precipitation and Low Pressure Systems in Climate Model Simulations journal July 2015
Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations - the CRU TS3.10 Dataset: UPDATED HIGH-RESOLUTION GRIDS OF MONTHLY CLIMATIC OBSERVATIONS journal May 2013
Suppression of south Asian summer monsoon precipitation in the 21st century journal January 2009
The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system journal April 2011
Falling monsoon depression frequency: A Gray-Sikka conditions perspective journal October 2013
A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data journal January 1998
Dominating Controls for Wetter South Asian Summer Monsoon in the Twenty-First Century journal April 2015
Thermodynamic Bias in the Multimodel Mean Boreal Summer Monsoon journal April 2013
The South Asian Summer Monsoon and Its Relationship with ENSO in the IPCC AR4 Simulations journal March 2007
The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) journal July 2017
Some aspects of the life history, structure and movement of monsoon depressions journal January 1977
GPCP Pentad Precipitation Analyses: An Experimental Dataset Based on Gauge Observations and Satellite Estimates journal July 2003
Increasing Trend of Extreme Rain Events Over India in a Warming Environment journal December 2006
The NCEP–NCAR 50–Year Reanalysis: Monthly Means CD–ROM and Documentation journal February 2001
Decline and poleward shift in Indian summer monsoon synoptic activity in a warming climate journal February 2018
A global climatology of monsoon low-pressure systems: Global Climatology of Monsoon Low-Pressure Systems journal October 2014
On the decreasing trend of the number of monsoon depressions in the Bay of Bengal journal January 2016
How Do Microphysical Processes Influence Large‐Scale Precipitation Variability and Extremes? journal February 2018
The spatiotemporal structure of precipitation in Indian monsoon depressions: Spatiotemporal Structure of Precipitation in MDs
  • Hunt, Kieran M. R.; Turner, Andrew G.; Parker, David E.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 142, Issue 701 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2901
journal October 2016
Moisture Vertical Structure, Column Water Vapor, and Tropical Deep Convection journal June 2009

Cited By (2)

Regional Climate Response of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian Monsoon Regions to Explosive Volcanism and ENSO Forcing journal July 2019
Tropical Lows in Southern Africa: Tracks, Rainfall Contributions, and the Role of ENSO journal November 2019

Similar Records

Characteristics of Bay of Bengal Monsoon Depressions in the 21st Century
Journal Article · Wed Jun 20 20:00:00 EDT 2018 · Geophysical Research Letters · OSTI ID:1474867
Sources of errors in the simulation of south Asian summer monsoon in the CMIP5 GCMs
Journal Article · Mon Sep 19 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Climate Dynamics · OSTI ID:1372959

Related Subjects