An intensifying El Nino and global warming are driving a shift in India’s monsoon rainfall, creating more erratic weather patterns that threaten to dent agricultural output and strain power grids.
This year’s monsoon opened with India’s fifth-driest June on record and rainfall almost 40 per cent below normal levels, followed by a sudden deluge early this month – when about a month’s worth of precipitation was dumped on cities like Mumbai in a single week.
Since then, the weather system has stalled into another break, with national rainfall about 24 per cent lower than usual for the time of year as of Sunday.
“The number of rainy days and how they are distributed used to be smoother. That’s how farmers developed their crop calendars over the years,” said Raghuram Murtugudde, visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland.
“Global warming combined with El Nino makes the atmosphere act like a sponge that soaks a lot of water and then pours it all in one place.”