Rising surface pressure over Tibetan Plateau strengthens indian summer monsoon rainfall over northwestern India

Abstract

Abstract The dipole pattern (wetting over northwestern India and drying over the Indo-Gangetic plains and northeast India) in the rainfall trends is reported in many earlier studies. The exact cause of the rainfall trends’ asymmetry remains unclear. We show that increasing trends over the northwestern parts are closely associated with the rise in surface pressure over the Tibetan Plateau. The surface pressure over Tibetan Plateau shows increasing trends (0.23 hPa decade−1, p < 0.01) during 1979–2020. Easterlies across northwest India and southerlies over east India show rises of − 0.26 ms−1 decade−1 and 0.15 ms−1 decade−1, respectively, in line with Tibetan surface pressure trends. Water vapour transfer across northwest India has increased as a result of these changes in circulation. Increased lower-level easterlies carried more water vapour from the Bay of Bengal over northwest India. At the same time, stronger mid-level southerlies drove extratropical dry air out of India, strengthening the rainfall generating mechanism. Rising easterlies in northwest India also enhance vorticity along the monsoon trough, which promotes rainfall generation. Concurrently, because of the high surface pressure over Tibet, the circulation intensity of the mid-tropospheric cyclone over East India was weakened, resulting in less rain in the Indo-Gangetic region. The present study proposes that an increase in the surface pressure over Tibetan Plateau is an important factor contributing to the dipole pattern in the ISMR trends, particularly upward trends in rainfall over northwest India