The idea of a ‘revival’ of a delayed and weakened monsoon is a misleading one and the country’s earth science agencies must advise against the term being used. In particular, our news media must cease using this term as it implies, incorrectly, that rainfall can be ‘made up’ even though current ‘averages’ are low.
This group of maps of the 2014 monsoon is in three parts. Each part is composed of four separate but linked maps, two each in two rows.
This is how you read each of the three sets: the top left map in a group of four shows the anomaly (in millimetres) of rainfall for the days measured. In this map, ochre yellow and dark browns are regions with the least rain compared to what they should have received, while those shaded in blues have received more than they normally do. The second map, top right, shows the percent of normal rain – light and dark browns being percentages very much lower than normal and greens and blues above.
The lower left map in each group shows the accumulated rainfall for the measured days in millimetres, with green then blue and then orange showing the increasing levels of accumulated rain. In contrast, the lower right map shows the normal cumulative rainfalls for the same period.
As with the group of four maps for the seven day period, the groups for the ten and 30 day rainfall measurement cycles follow the same pattern. In this panel, the seven day period is 26 June to 02 July 2014, the ten day period is 23 June to 02 July 2014 and the 30 day period is 03 June to 02 July 2014.
The maps are by the Climate Prediction Center, NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, USA.
This is simply not so. A normal monsoon is certainly not one that can statistically be called ‘normal’ on the basis of cumulative rainfall for a region – such as any one of our 36 meteorological sub-divisions – adding up to what is expected over four weeks after a few heavy showers in the last few days have helped tilt the reading from ‘below normal’ to ‘normal’. The three panels of maps alongside convincingly explain why.
Yet senior meteorological department officials, including those at the National Weather Forecasting Centre at the India Meteorological Department, issue statements such as “the monsoon has revived in many parts of central and north India”. This may be meant to assuage the concerns especially of farming and cultivating households, but in fact they only distract from the recognition a continuing climatological crisis urgently needs.
The evidence till now is extremely worrisome. June’s rainfall was 43% below average (a ‘national’ statistic that has no meaning in a district, but which helps in a small way to describe the degree of dryness) and this makes June 2014 the worst first month for recorded rainfall since 2009, a year in which the monsoon was the worst after the dreadful dry of 1972.
Especially given the growing evidence of the effects of climate change in India – from rising sea levels, to increasing meltwater from Himalayan glaciers causing torrents in hilly and mountainous districts, to rising mean temperatures in peninsular and north India – there is reason enough to set aside the usual measures such as the date of what is called ‘the onset of the rains over Kerala’ which is pegged to 01 June, and then a progress of the rain up the peninsula based on patterns of 40, 50 and more years ago. These time-tables no longer stand. [A full resolution set of the maps used here is available as a zip archive (2.68 MB).]
What continues to stand in the food staples calendar is the sowing that takes place in July and August but although there is more cooperation between the official earth sciences agencies and the Ministry of Agriculture, the central government has continues to link, in recent statements, the rising prices of food staples to the probability that these will continue should the monsoon be inadequate – which is what all the indicators are pointing to at this time.
This insistence is a contradiction, for a late and weak monsoon (or even an uneven and heavy monsoon that is statistically ‘normal’) will not help the usual sowing time-table and that is why agricultural contingency plans for every district are readied at the first indication of a wayward monsoon. The role of the central and state governments at times like these is not to blame poor rains for volatile and rising food prices but to help determine crop time-tables that match the circumstances.
By Rahul Goswami
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