INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, VOL. 12. 257-268 (1992) 551.577.32:551.577.

34(540)

SPATIAL A N D SUBSEASONAL PATTERNS OF THE LONG-TERM

TRENDS OF INDIAN SUMMER MONSOON RAINFALL
K . RUPA KUMAR, G.B. PANT, B. PARTHASARATHY AND N.A. SONTAKKE
Climatology and Hydrometeorology Division, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pune-411008, India

Received 19 December 1990

Revised 14 August 1991

ABSTRACT
Long-term changes in the Indian monsoon rainfall on regional and local scales have important social and economic
consequences. To present a comprehensive picture of such changes, the monthly rainfall data at 306 stations, well spread
over India, have been analysed over 114 years (1871-1984), for long-term trends. The trends are quantified by linear trend
for monthly as well as seasonal rainfall for each station. Some broad contiguous areas showing statistically significant
trends have been identified. Areas of increasing trend in the monsoon seasonal rainfall are found along the west coast,
north Andhra Pradesh and north-west India, and those of decreasing trend over east Madhya Pradesh and adjoining
areas, north-east India and parts of Gujarat and Kerala.
The subseasonal patterns indicate that the excess or deficiency of the monsoon rainfall is more frequently realized in the
later half of the season. Monsoon rainfall tends to be more concentrated in August, over the west coast and central India.
KEY WORDS Climatic Change Indian Rainfall Regional rainfall trends Indian summer monsoon

1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, contemporary changes in Earth’s climate have become the focus of scientific effort in many
aspects. This gains particular significance in view of the possible effects owing to human interference in the
natural environmental processes. Numerous studies have been made on global, hemispheric and continental-
scale temperature and precipitation changes, and are critically reviewed in Ellsaesser et at. (1 986). Though
precipitation is an important climatic element and a prominent indicator of climatic change, particularly in
lower latitudes, it has not received as much attention as temperature for studies on long-term changes,
probably because of its highly discontinuous nature on temporal and spatial scales, with a predominant local
noise. It is also important to note that precipitation is highly sensitive to circulation characteristics, which
have significant projected long-term changes (Wigley and Jones, 1985), though their expected regional
patterns arc not unequivocal.
Bradley et al. (1 987) have studied the precipitation fluctuations over Northern Hemisphere land areas since
the mid-nineteenth century and found significant increases in mid-latitude precipitation and concurrent
decreases in low-latitude precipitation over the last 30-40. years. Though the causal mechanisms for such
changes are still open for discussion, the fact remains that the long-term changes in precipitation have
important socio-economic consequences, particularly on a regional scale. A comprehensive knowledge of the
spatial patterns of precipitation changes from observational records would thus be extremely helpful for long-
term planning. In the present paper, the long-term trends of the summer monsoon rainfall over India have
been studied, with emphasis on their spatial and subseasonal patterns.

2. PAST STUDIES OVER THE INDIAN REGION

With the availability of long records, interest in the long-term trends of the Indian rainfall developed more
than three decades ago (Pramanik and Jagannathan, 1953; Rao and Jagannathan, 1963). Extensive reviews of

0899-84 1 8/92/030257-12$06.00
01992 by the Royal Meteorological Society
258 K. RUPA KUMAR

various such studies on this subject for the Indian region have been presented by Parthasarathy and Dhar
(1978), Parthasarathy (1984a) and Sarker and Thapliyal(l988). Most of the studies have clearly pointed out
that the monsoon rainfall is trendless and mainly random in nature over a long period of time, particularly on
the all-India scale (Mooley and Parthasarathy, 1984). However, the presence of some pockets of significant
long-term rainfall changes was reported quite early by Koteswaram and Alvi (1 969), Jagannathan and
Parthasarathy (1973), and Jagannathan and Bhalme (1973).
Recently, Parthasarathy (1984b) studied the long-term trends in the subdivisional monsoon rainfall and
found that two subdivisions, namely the sub-Himalayan west Bengal and the Bihar plains, show a decreasing
tendency (-4.4 and -6.9 per cent respectively) and four subdivisions, namely Punjab, Konkan and Goa,
West Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, show an increasing tendency (+ 1 1.6, + 8.9, + 5.9 and + 7-1 per cent
respectively). However, the subdivisional boundaries adopted in this study follow the administrative
demarcations of the various states and do not truly represent internally coherent areas. Gregory (1989a)
rescheduled the subdivisional rainfall data of Parthasarathy et al. (1987) into 10 macro-regions by grouping
together subdivisions with roughly similar rainfall changes over time. Gregory (1989b) observed that there is
no significant linear trend in the monsoon rainfall of any of these macro-regions for the period 1871-1985.
However, he found that the linear trends indicating some reduction in the rainfall are close to significance over
two regions (Assam plus northern West Bengal and Bihar). Here also, as the basic spatial unit is a subdivision,
there is still the possibility of missing the core regions having significant trends. Thus, significant trends may
get damped out over some areas where opposite trends are averaged.
Several workers have reported the presence of significant trends in the annual and seasonal rainfall of
specific regions. Raghavendra (1974) found an increasing trend in the rainfall over Maharashtra State, after
1901. Chowdhuri and Abhyankar (1979) found that the trends in the monsoon and annual rainfall in Gujarat
State during the period 1895-1970 were not significant. Ramasastri (1979) found an increasing trend in the
rainfall over West Rajasthan while Ramasastri and Jain (1989) observed that there is no significant trend in
the rainfall over East Rajasthan. Pant and Hingane (1988) found a significant increase in the monsoon and
annual rainfall for the period 1901-1982 over a large area comprising north-western India. Dhar et at. (1982)
concluded that there was no significant trend in the rainfall of Tamil Nadu, during the period 1877-1976.
However, Krishnan (1984) found a decreasing trend in the annual rainfall over Tamil Nadu and an increasing
trend over coastal and north interior Karnataka for 1901-1975. The increasing trend in the monsoon rainfall
over coastal Karnataka was noticed earlier by Parthasarathy and Mooley (1981). Alvi and Koteswaram
(1985) reported a significant increasing trend in the rainfall over the west coast for 1875-1975. Soman et al.
(1988) found a decreasing trend in the rainfall over a major part of Kerala except the coastal belt during the
period 1901-1980. Some of these studies on regional rainfall trends attracted the attention of the public,
causing much apprehension. However, it is very difficult to obtain a comprehensive picture from such
scattered studies about the rainfall changes in India. The present paper addresses itself to this problem.

3. DATA AND ANALYSIS

In the present study, the monthly rainfall data at 306 stations distributed fairly uniformly over India (Figure
l), one from each of the districts in the contiguous plain regions of the country, for a period of 114 years
(1871-1984) have been used. Various aspects of the quality of this data set have been discussed by Mooley and
Parthasarathy (1984) and Parthasarathy et al. (1987), who have also shown that the monsoon rainfall series of
these stations are homogeneous, Gaussian distributed and free from persistence. At each station, the monthly
and seasonal rainfall series of the summer monsoon (June-September) have been analysed for long-term
trends.
Analysing precipitation series for trends is a difficult task because of the high variability involved. The
simplest method is the semi-average method, where the series is divided into two parts and tested for equality.
However, this involves some amount of subjectivity in partitioning the series; though some authors make it a
rule to divide the series exactly in the middle. This method runs into difficulties when the precipitation series
contains epochs interfering with the division of the data period. The risks involved in such multi-year
averaging in studies seeking long-term trends have been convincingly demonstrated by Parkinson (1 989). The
 TRENDS OF INDIAN MONSOON RAINFALL 259

36'

32O

28 O

'4O

!OO

I 6"

I2O

B0

Figure I . Network of rain-gauge stations used in the study. The various States demarcated are: PJ, Punjab HR, Haryana; UP, Uttar
Pradesh; BH, Bihar; WB, West Bengal; SK, Sikkim; NE, north-eastern States; RS, Rajasthan; MP, Madhya Pradesh; OR, Orissa; GU,
Gujarat; MR, Maharashtra; AP. Andhra Pradesh; KK, Karnataka; KL, Kerala; TN, Tamil Nadu

Mann-Kendall rank-statistic, which is based on the run-test of a ranked precipitation series, is sensitive to
non-linear trends also. However, it indicates only the direction and significance of the trends and cannot
quantify the trend. In the present paper, the linear trend has been used, because of its advantages of giving
magnitude, direction and statistical significance. The linear trend, i.e. the slope of the simple least-square
regression line with time as the independent variable, is found to be very useful in studying the secular trends
in precipitation data (e.g. Currie and Hameed, 1990).Though the assumption of a linear form of trend has its
own limitations when applied to series of long-periods, it adequately reflects the relative magnitudes of the
major rainfall epochs, without any presumption regarding their time distribution.
The linear trends are obtained for the annual, seasonal, and monthly (June through September) rainfall
series at each station. These trends are expressed as percentages of the long-term mean per 100 years, for
convenience of interpretation. This procedure is used to eliminate the mean rainfall pattern from the spatial
pattern of the trends. The significance of the trend value is tested by means of the F-ratio, giving due
consideration to the autocorrelation of the series as suggested by Wigley and Jones (1981).

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Out of the 306 stations considered, 171 have shown increasing trends, with 18 of them being significant, and
135 have shown decreasing trends, with 13 of them being significant. This is probably the reason why the
monsoon rainfall on an all-India scale does not display any conspicuous long-term trend.
260 K. RUPA KUMAR

4.1. Spatial patterns of the long-term trends in monsoon and

annual rainfall
The spatial pattern of long-term linear trends in the summer monsoon rainfall, over the period 1871-1984,
expressed as a percentage of the respective means, is presented in Figure 2. The map shows large contiguous
areas of increasing and decreasing trends, marked by some stations showing highly significant trends.
Among the regions showing decreasing trend, the largest is the contiguous area covering a major part of
Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and adjoining areas of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The
trends are highly significant over the eastern parts of Madhya Pradesh. This area is in close proximity to
another region of decreasing rainfall over the north-eastern portions of the country, interspersed by narrow
belts of non-significant positive trends. In the north-eastern part also, several stations have shown significant
negative trends.
There is another large area of negative trend covering the Marathwada and Gujarat subdivisions; however,
none of the stations in this area shows a statistically significant trend. The decreasing trend in the rainfall over

36 O 16"
N N

32
12

28 f8

24 24

20
21:

16 16

12 12

E 8"

Figure 2. Linear trend expressed as a percentage of normal per 100 years, 1871-1984, for monsoon rainfall. Hatched areas indicate
negative trend and stippled areas indicate significance at the 5 per cent level
 TRENDS OF INDIAN MONSOON RAINFALL 26 1

interior Kerala, which was revealed earlier by Soman et al. (1988),based on a denser network of rain-gauges,
appears to be confined to a relatively smaller area.
Among the areas of increasing trend in the monsoon rainfall, the largest is along the west coast. All along
the west coast, the trends are highly significant and positive, indicating a spatially coherent signal. This is in
agreement with the findings of Jagannathan and Parthasarathy (1973) and Alvi and Koteswaram (198Sa).
Other areas with a significant positive trend are, north Andhra Pradesh, north-west India and westernmost
areas of Madhya Pradesh. Over north-west India, the increasing trends are significant mainly over Punjab
and Haryana. An increasing trend in the mean rainfall of north-west India also has been observed by Pant and
Hingane (1988), but the detailed spatial pattern has not been considered by them.
The monsoon rainfall series of several stations in these regions also contain statistically significant (at the 5
per cent level) variance in the low frequencies (more than 10 per cent of the total variance contributed
by wavelengths greater than 70 years) as indicated by spectrum analysis of the rainfall data for the period
1871-1984, using the Blackman-Tukey algorithm with a maximum lag of 35. This further confirms the
significance of the signal of long period changes in the monsoon rainfall in these regions.
The trends in the annual rainfall show almost the same pattern as that of the monsoon rainfall, with minor
differences.This is obviously because of the dominant contribution of the monsoon to the annual rainfall over
a major part of the country.
It may be noted that the linear trends, as obtained for the different series, are basically the result of the
relative magnitudes and lengths of major rainfall epochs during the data period considered. Therefore, it must
be borne in mind that the linear trend as presented in this study does not indicate a continuous increase or
decrease but indicates the overall tendency in the frequency of either high or low rainfall situations.
Now that the contiguous areas of widespread decrease and increase in the monsoon rainfall are identified, it
may be interesting to examine the nature of the average rainfall over these areas. For this purpose, the area-
weighted (weighted by the area of the district represented by each station) average rainfall is obtained for three
regions showing a decreasing trend and three showing an increasing trend (Figure 3). While demarcating the
areas, stations showing non-significant trends also are included, provided they show the same sign and offer
contiguity. A few isolated stations within the area showing opposite but non-significant trends also are
included, to maintain contiguity. This type of averaging is expected to effectively damp out the local noise and
improve the large-scale signal. The area-weighted average series for these six regions are presented in Figure 4
and the trend values in Table I. The regional trends of monsoon rainfall show significant decrease over north-
east peninsula ( - 8 per cent) and north-east India (- 6 per cent) and significant increase over west coastal
India + 10 per cent) and central peninsula (+ 12 per cent). The trends in the annual rainfall are identical to
those in the monsoon rainfall, for all six regions.

4.2. Subseasonal patterns of the long-term trends in the monsoon rainfall

The months of July and August are generally the most active months of the monsoon, contributing 60 per
cent of the monsoon rainfall. On an all-India scale the monthly rainfall of individual months within the season
are uncorrelated (Table 11) mainly because the synoptic situations responsible for the rainfall are of smaller
time-scales and are basically generated and developed independently, though bioadly embedded in the
monsoon system. Thus the seasonal rainfall cannot indicate the nature of monthly distribution of rainfall in
the country. However, the highly significant correlation coefficients (CCs) of the monthly rainfall with
seasonal rainfall indicate that all the months substantially contribute to the variations in the seasonal rainfall.
This aspect has been examined in detail for the extreme monsoon rainfall years on an all-India scale, by
computing the composites of the departures from normal of the monthly rainfall for deficient (below - 10 per
+
cent of normal) and excess (above 10 per cent of normal) years (Table 111). It can be seen in both the cases
that there were some years in which the monthly rainfall departures opposed the seasonal rainfall departures.
It appears that the deficiency or excess of the seasonal rainfall is realized more frequently in the later half of the
monsoon season. In this connection, it is interesting to note that the September rainfall shows the highest
correlation coefficient with the monsoon seasonal rainfall. The rainfall departures in the month of September
also are associated more closely with the seasonal departures in both the extremes. This is more conspicuous
262 K. RUPA KUMAR

N
34

3i

2 i

24

26

I$

ti

8'
N

-t P O S I T I V E TREND - N E G A T I V E TREND
@ SIGNIFICANT P O S I T I V E TREND @ S I G N I F I C A N T NEGATIVE TREND

Figure 3. Contiguous areas showing widespread increasing/decreasing tendency in monsoon rainfall (NW, north-west India; NEP,
North-east peninsula; NE, north-east India; NWP, North-west peninsula; WC, west coast; CP, central peninsula). Locations of the
stations within the areas and the sign and significance of their trends also are indicated

in the case of excess years, where the September rainfall has not been below normal even in a single year, while
other months display negative departures in some years. Though the month of September contributes only
about 20 per cent of the monsoon seasonal rainfall, its contribution is conspicuously less (19 per cent) in
deficient years and more (23 percent) in excess years (Table 111). In view of these subseasonal characteristics of
the monsoon rainfall it would be worthwhile to examine the spatial patterns of long-term trends separately for
the monthly rainfall.
The spatial distributions of the linear trend of monthly rainfall for June, July, August, and September are
presented in Figure 5. In June, almost the whole country (except the State of Andhra Pradesh) is covered by
negative trends (Figure 5(a)).However, it should be kept in mind that the month of June witnesses a transition
from pre-monsoon season to monsoon season over a major part of the country. In July (Figure 5(b)), the
central and southern parts of the peninsula are dominated by positive trends and the north-east and north-
west peninsula by significant negative trends. In August (Figure 5(c))a major part of the country is covered by
positive trends, many of which are high and significant, while the whole of north-east India is under a
decreasing trend. In September (Figure 5(d)),a large part of central India and north-east India is covered by
negative trends. The eastern parts of north-central India and the western peninsula are dominated by positive
trends. Thus, the spatial patterns of the monthly rainfall trends indicate that the monsoon rainfall tends to be
more concentrated in the month of August, particularly over the west coast and central India. Almost the
 TRENDS OF INDIAN MONSOON RAINFALL 263

a
_I
3
v,
z2
w
0-
t-
v,
a
Y
I
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0
z

I l I 1 , , , , 7 t ! I I I , i , , I I I I I I I I
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

- _ _ - - _
-
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
W d r ) N - O a ) a ) pc o r n m p c w ~ ~ r n ~
(w
3
0
m
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t-

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-0

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0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ,
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ~
a m p c w ~ o + m ~ .
 Table 1. Linear trends of area-weighted average rainfall over some contiguous areas showing significant trends

Number Area June July August September Monsoon Annual

of
~ ~~

Region Stations (km2) Mean Trend Mean Trend Mean Trend Mean Trend Mean Trend Mean Trend
(mm) (%) (mm) (YO) (mm) (%) (mm) (%) (mm) (%) (mm) (%)

North-east
peninsula 39 496,994 194 -28" 372 -13" 358 +7 218 - 3 1142 - 8" 1345 - 7'
North-east
India 31 306,151 351 - 2 386 + 4 349 -15b 272 -14" 1358 - 6" 1922 - 4
North-west
peninsula 20 230,576 117 -18 205 -13 163 +10 155 -13 640 - 8 741 - 5
West coastal
India 31 251,116 318 -1 415 + 9 255 +25" 184 +11 1171 +lo" 1474 + 9"
Central
peninsula 31 309,908 126 - 2 229 +16" 200 +28b 173 - 2 727 +12" 934 +12"
North-west
India 48 405,439 55 -30 173 +13 170 +21 84 + 3 483 + 9 556 +lo
All-India 306 2,880,049 163 -13 275 + 1 243 + 9 171 0 852 0 1089 -t 1

a Significant at the 5 per cent level.

Significant at the 1 per cent level.
 TRENDS OF INDIAN MONSOON RAINFALL 265

Table 11. Correlation between rainfall of different months during the summer monsoon season, on
an all-India scalea
Month June July August September Monsoon
June 1 .oo - 0.05 - 0.05 -0.07 0.36"
(24/3) (31/1) (7/5)
July 1 .oo 0.11 0.23b 0.57'
(21/4) (33/1)
August 1 .oo 0.26" 0.61d
(28/2)
September 1.00 0.65'
Monsoon 1.oo

a Figures within the parentheses indicate the number of stations, out of a total 306, showing significant positive
correlation coefficients/those showing negative correlation coefficients.
Significant at the 5 per cent level.
Significant at 1 per cent level.
Significant at 0.1 per cent level.

whole of Andhra Pradesh State seems to be experiencing a trend towards a wetter beginning of the monsoon
season, when compared with the rest of the country.
The trends in the monthly rainfall are negative for June in all the regions identified in the earlier section as
having widespread trends (Table I); however, a significant decreasing trend is observed only for the north-east
peninsula ( - 30 per cent). It can be seen that the negative trend in the monsoon rainfall for north-east and
north-west peninsula is mainly contributed by the months of June and July, while that over north-east India is
mainly contributed by the months of August and September. For the regions showing positive trend in the
monsoon rainfall, the contribution is mainly from the months of July and August.

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The spatial patterns of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall have been examined, using data at 306 stations
for a period of 114 years (1871-1984). The subseasonal characteristics of the monsoon rainfall and the long-
term trends on a monthly scale also have been studied. The following are the main conclusions:
(i) there are broad contiguous areas of increasing/decreasing trend, which are approximately equal in their
total size;
(ii) the areas identified as having widespread decreasing trend are, (a) north-east peninsula, (b) north-east
India, and (c) north-west peninsula, and those having widespread increasing trend are, (a) west coast;
(b) central peninsula; (c) north-west India;
(iii) the decreasing trend in the mean monsoon rainfall of north-east peninsula and north-east India
( - 6 to - 8 per cent of norma1/100 years) and the increasing trend in that of the west coast and central
+
peninsula ( + 10 to 12 per cent of norma1/100 years) are statistically significant;
(iv) the excess or deficiency of monsoon rainfall is more frequently realized in the later half of the season;
(v) the monsoon rainfall tends to be more concentrated in the month of August, particularly over west coast
and central India.
It may, however, be noted that the trends identified in the present study, though statistically significant,
account for a relatively small part of the total variance in the rainfall. The interannual variability continues to
dominate the rainfall fluctuations. The information derived from the trends is useful mainly in isolating the
low-frequency modes in the monsoon rainfall variability and their spatial preferences. This may be of some
practical utility for long-term planning of the resources. The results also may be useful in targeting specific
areas for investigations of causal mechanisms involved in climate change.
 N
m
m

Table 111. Mean subseasonal patterns of the years of extreme all-India monsoon rainfall
~~ ~~

Deficient yearsa Excess yearsb

Mean Mean Percentage Mean Mean Percentage

percentage percentage occasions percentage percentage occasions F
Month departure contribution of below departure contribution of above w
from to seasonal normal from to seasonal normal 5
normal total rainfall normal total rainfall R
s
June - 12 20 68 + 14 19 71
July - 16 32 79 + 4 30 65
August - 16 29 89 + 14 29 82
September - 20 19 89 +26 23 100
~~ ~~

a Deficient years: 1873, 1877, 1899, 1901, 1904, 1905, 1911, 1918, 1920, 1928, 1941, 1951, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1979, 1982 (total 19).
Excess years: 1874, 1878, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1910, 1916, 1917, 1933, 1942, 1947, 1956, 1959, 1961, 1970, 1975, 1983 (total 17).
 TRENDS OF INDIAN MONSOON RAINFALL 261

I
June

32

36'
N <>. s., -. ' d -36'
September
,'
32

28

2L

20

1€

Ti

8'
72 76 80 88 92'E

Figure 5. Linear trend expressed as a percentage of normal per 100 years, 1871-1984, in the rainfall of the four months of the monsoon
season. Hatched areas indicate negative trends and stippled areas indicate significance at the 5 per cent level

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are grateful to Mr D.R. Sikka, Director, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, for facilities
and encouragement for this study. India Meteorological Department is thankfully acknowledged for the
supply of data. The comments and suggestions given by Drs O.N. Dhar and S.V. Singh, who have carefully
gone through the manuscript, have been quite valuable. Mrs J.V. Revadekar has done an efficient word
processing of the manuscript.
268 K. RUPA KUMAR

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