[1] The large (8%) changes in the past seasonal insolation have a well-documented influence on the Indian summer monsoon. However, the effect of the small (<1%) decade to century scale solar variability is less certain. Evidence is emerging that Earth’s climate is sensitive to small changes in solar output on centennial time scale during the Holocene. Comparison of a recently published proxy re...

Trichiurus lepturus (ribbon fish) was collected from different spatial locations (south west (SW) coast edging the Arabian Sea and south east (SE) coast surrounding the Bay of Bengal of India) and seasons (pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon) during a continuous period of four years (2008 through 2011), and their edible muscles were studied for differential nutritional compositions of protein...

The Asian monsoon system is an important tipping element in Earth’s climate with a large impact on human societies in the past and present. In light of the potentially severe impacts of present and future anthropogenic climate change on Asian hydrology, it is vital to understand the forcing mechanisms of past climatic regime shifts in the Asian monsoon domain. Here we use novel recurrence netwo...

Identification of the precise nature and attributes of the time series of climatological data is very important and is usually the first step for water resources planning and management. Such exercise is very important for hydro-climatic extremes. In many instances, a climatic time series is generally not statistically independent but is comprised of patterns of persistence, cycles, trends or s...

A 70-year record of daily monsoon-season rainfall at a network of 13 stations in central-western India is analyzed using a 4state homogeneous hidden Markov model (HMM). The diagnosed states are seen to play distinct roles in the seasonal march of the monsoon, can be associated with “active” and “break” monsoon phases and capture the northward propagation of convective disturbances associated wi...

The first global climatology of monsoon low-pressure systems is presented here, based on the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Low-pressure systems are classified into three intensity categories and particular focus is given to systems in the category corresponding to a traditional definition of monsoon depressions. Vortex tracks are identified using an automated algorithm applied to the distributions of...

The Asian summer monsoon is organized into distinct convection centers, but the mechanism for this organization is not well understood. Analysis of new satellite observations reveals that narrow mountain ranges are an important organizing agent anchoring monsoon convection centers on the windward side. The Bay of Bengal convection, in particular, features the heaviest precipitation on its easte...

Indian summer monsoon rainfall is a process which is dependent on number of environmental and geological parameter. This makes it very hard to precisely predict the monsoon rainfall. As India is agriculture based country, a long range monsoon rainfall prediction is crucial for proper planning and organization of agriculture policy. Severe hydrological events, such as droughts, may result in dec...

Seed traits are related to several ecological attributes of a plant species, including its distribution. While the storage physiology of desiccation-sensitive seeds has drawn considerable attention, their ecology has remained sidelined, particularly how the strong seasonality of precipitation in monsoonal climate affects their temporal and spatial distribution. We compiled data on seed mass, se...

Executive Summary 1 a. Introduction and Motivation 1 b. Workshop Structure 1 c. Science Recommendations 2 d. Barriers to Progress 2 e. Implementation Mechanisms 2 f. In 2004 the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) that provides scientific guidance to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) requested an assessment of (1) WCRP monsoon related activities and (2) the range of available observation...