Increased Summer Monsoon Rainfall over Northwest India caused by Hadley
Cell Expansion and Indian Ocean Warming.
Abstract
The Indian summer monsoon precipitation trend from 1979 to 2022 shows a
substantial 40% increase over Northwest India, which is in agreement
with the future projections of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project
6 (CMIP6). The observationally constrained reanalysis dataset reveals
that a prominent sea surface warming in the western equatorial Indian
Ocean and the Arabian Sea might be responsible for the rainfall
enhancement through strengthening the cross-equatorial monsoonal flow
and associated evaporation. We show that the cross-equatorial monsoon
winds over the Indian Ocean are strengthening due to the merging of
Pacific Ocean trade winds and rapid Indian Ocean warming. These winds
also enhance the latent heat flux (evaporation), and in combination,
this results in increased moisture transport from the ocean toward the
land.