The monsoon season in India has been marked by extreme weather events, including torrential rains in Mumbai and Delhi. From intense heat waves to unprecedented downpours, the season’s volatility is increasingly evident.
The number of “extreme rain days” (defined as more than 150mm of precipitation in 24 hours) in India has gone up. Climate change appears to be making the monsoon more variable. And as temperatures rise further, the monsoon’s extremes could become more damaging.
Scientist say climate change appears to be altering the monsoon patterns along with weakening atmospheric circulations. As a result, the country has witnessed record-breaking extreme weather events in June and July.
Delhi-Mumbai rain pattern
In Delhi, the impact of these changing rainfall patterns has been stark. In June, the city experienced its highest rainfall in 88 years, with 228mm recorded from 8:30 am on June 27 to 8:30 am on June 28.
This contributed to a total of 235.5mm for the month, marking the highest 24-hour rainfall in June since 1936.
However, Delhi’s July rainfall so far has been about 22% below the monthly average, with 118.2mm recorded up until Tuesday. Last year, the city received 384.6mm in July. Since the monsoon’s onset on June 28, Delhi has accumulated 355.2mm of rain.
Mumbai has also seen dramatic changes in its rainfall patterns. The city has recorded its second wettest July ever, with 1,505.5mm of rain so far this month.
This follows a record-setting 1,771mm of rainfall in July 2023. The current rainfall surge began on July 7 with multiple days of heavy downpours, including a peak of 268mm between July 7 and 8.
Despite June’s shortfall, with only 347mm compared to the expected 537.1mm, July has exceeded its average of 855mm and continues to rise.
In 2023, Mumbai experienced 90% of June’s average rainfall in just five days, highlighting the growing intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall events. The city’s shifting rainfall patterns underscore the broader impact of changing climate conditions on the monsoon.
Precipitation variability
The fact that climate change has been changing rainfall pattern across the world has also been documented in a study published on Friday.
According to Reuters, researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75 per cent of the world’s land area had seen a rise in “precipitation variability” or wider swings between wet and dry weather.
Scientists said stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures.
Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.
“(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods,” Reuters quoted Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study, as saying.
“This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods,” Sherwood added.
Tropical storms becoming more powerful
Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behaviour of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.
Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year’s most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China’s eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.
Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.
While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, Reuters quoted Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan’s Nagoya University, as saying.
In its “blue paper” on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.
With inputs from agencies
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