Basic mechanism for abrupt monsoon transitions
Edited by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany and approved August 18, 2009
Abstract
Monsoon systems influence the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people. During the Holocene and last glacial period, rainfall in India and China has undergone strong and abrupt changes. Though details of monsoon circulations are complicated, observations reveal a defining moisture-advection feedback that dominates the seasonal heat balance and might act as an internal amplifier, leading to abrupt changes in response to relatively weak external perturbations. Here we present a minimal conceptual model capturing this positive feedback. The basic equations, motivated by observed relations, yield a threshold behavior, robust with respect to addition of other physical processes. Below this threshold in net radiative influx, R c, no conventional monsoon can develop; above R c, two stable regimes exist. We identify a nondimensional parameter l that defines the threshold and makes monsoon systems comparable with respect to the character of their abrupt transition. This dynamic similitude may be helpful in understanding past and future variations in monsoon circulation. Within the restrictions of the model, we compute R c for current monsoon systems in India, China, the Bay of Bengal, West Africa, North America, and Australia, where moisture advection is the main driver of the circulation.
Acknowledgments.
We thank B.N. Goswami, R. Krishnan, and J. Srinivasan for helpful hints and discussions; and T. Lenton for useful comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by the Heinrich Bll Foundation, the German National Academic Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
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Received: February 11, 2009
Published online: December 8, 2009
Published in issue: December 8, 2009
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Acknowledgments
We thank B.N. Goswami, R. Krishnan, and J. Srinivasan for helpful hints and discussions; and T. Lenton for useful comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by the Heinrich Bll Foundation, the German National Academic Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Notes
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0901414106/DCSupplemental.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Basic mechanism for abrupt monsoon transitions, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
106 (49) 20572-20577,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0901414106
(2009).
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