Abstract

The El-Nino southern oscillation (ENSO) is driven by temperature changes in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and can have profound impact on weather conditions around the world. The presence of large scale climate signals and their linkages to hydrologic processes on land response is a valuable indicator of impacts on extreme precipitation and stream flow events on a local scale. In recent years, the ENSO has shown greater variability indicating that it may strengthen under climate change. Therefore, the major objective of the present research was to investigate the linkages of ENSO with the monsoonal precipitation at 40 meteorological stations in India. The novelty of the present research lies in the investigation of linkages of ENSO with point rainfall rather than average rainfall computed over a large area. The results indicated a negative association between ENSO and monsoonal precipitation at the majority of stations considered in this study. Only Six stations, namely, Bhubaneswar, Gaya, Guwahati, Hissar, Kolkata and Mysore showed positive correlation between ENSO and monsoonal precipitation. It is concluded from the analysis of linkages of ENSO with monsoonal precipitation at different stations that the ENSO is associated with weak Indian monsoon. Advances in understanding the linkages of large scale indices with land-surface hydrologic processes have the potential to improve monsoon forecasting skills in India.

Keywords: El-Nino; ENSO; Pacific; Monsoonal; Precipitation; Indian; Monsoon