Warming over Middle East may intensify rain over region
Global warming
is known to make heavy rainfall events more likely—a warmer atmosphere holds much more moisture, leading to larger deluges. But some studies suggest that climatic shifts are playing a role in intensifying rainfall over northwest India in particular, including Mumbai.
"The recent rainfall in Mumbai wasn't as heavy as 2005, not even as heavy as 2017, but it persisted for days," said climate scientist Raghu Murtugudde, adding, "That's what comes with the loading of the dice — climate change makes some things more probable."
Most studies have pointed to the warming of the Arabian Sea as a factor in increased rainfall in the region. A 2017 paper from climate scientist Roxy Koll and others had found faster-than-average warming of the sea driving surges of moisture toward land, resulting in a three-fold jump in extreme rain events over central India, including parts of Maharashtra.
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Other studies have observed a "westward shift" of the monsoon. A 2023 paper by BN Goswami and others found a 10% decrease in mean rainfall in the northeast along with a 25% increase in the west and northwest. This was due to a westward shift in the Indian Ocean's warm pool, scientists said, that also displaced the monsoon rain belts. The study projected further increase in rainfall under different warming scenarios.
Murtugudde's recent studies point to another factor: warming trends in the Middle East.
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Land there is warming faster than the global average in part because dry regions generally warm faster. This increased heating creates a pressure gradient between the land and the Arabian Sea in the spring—lower over land—that pulls moisture-laden southwesterly winds toward the Himalayan foothills, northwest India and Pakistan.
Specifically, this mechanism pulls the monsoon low-level jet—a wind current in the lower atmosphere—northwards more often than natural variability would.
Murtugudde's 2023 paper found this spring heating and response mechanism responsible for 46% of the intensified rainfall over Pakistan and northwestern India during 1979-2022.
This mechanism also likely contributed to the recent intense rainfall in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, as well as floods in Pakistan, Murtugudde argues.
Other changes may be underway. A recent study by IIT Bombay scientist Vikram Chandel and others found that while Kochi usually sees more pre-monsoon rainfall than Mumbai, the latter can also experience it when wave activity in the upper atmosphere pulls westerly winds north.
"How this wave behaviour is changing over time, and how it might be connected to warming, is still an unanswered question," Chandel said.
One challenge for monsoon science is that even a trend seen over a few decades may not last, he and other experts say. "The patterns are shifting, but the monsoon is a big system, millions of years old," says KS Hosalikar, former head of climate services at IMD Pune. "Are the variations temporary or are they going to get permanent?"
Still, one pattern seems clear: heavy rainfall days interspersed with light or break days have become more common.
This year, Hosalikar notes that despite breaks, a few spikes of rain helped meet the rainfall average.
What does all this mean for the city? Subimal Ghosh, an IIT Bombay scientist who is working on an experimental rainfall forecasting model for the city, says better understanding of shifts in climatic processes would improve forecasting models and early warning systems. And that would make authorities more confident in actions like school closures.
This week, the authorities did fairly well in timely warnings and flood mitigation, these experts say. "They deployed hundreds of pumps, they did everything they could," says Ghosh. If it wasn't always enough, it's because the system itself needs to expand, he adds. "What we need now are hyperlocal warning systems, the ability to say that the rain will be heavy in this part of the city, but not that part of the city," he says.
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