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The Monsoon of South Asia is among several geographically distributed global monsoons. It affects the Indian subcontinent , where it is one of the oldest and most anticipated weather phenomena and an economically important pattern every year from June through September, but it is only partly understood and notoriously difficult to predict.
The age of onset of the South Asian monsoon is not widely agreed upon. [38] The South Asian monsoon may have begun in the Early [26] [49] [4] or Late Miocene. [31] This uncertainty makes investigation into the interactions of climate with other Earth systems (especially the direction of causality) in the Himalaya through time difficult.
The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African, Asian–Australian, the North American, and South American monsoons. The term was first used in English in British India and neighboring countries to refer to the big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy rainfall to the area.
The South Asian monsoon system primarily affects the continents of South Asia and their surrounding water bodies. In this particular system, summer monsoon blows as onshore northeasterly while winter monsoon blows as offshore westerly. The driving force of monsoon systems is the pressure difference between landmasses and waterbodies.
From May through August, the summer monsoon shifts through a series of dry and rainy phases as the rain belt moves northward, beginning over Indochina and the South China Sea (May), to the Yangtze River Basin and Japan (June) and finally to North China and Korea (July). When the monsoon ends in August, the rain belt moves back to South China.
Of the major monsoon systems, only the North American monsoon is expected to have substantial decreases in total precipitation, with the most likely outcome being a 1%-6% reduction in summer rainfall.
Climate of South Asia is largely characterised by monsoons. South Asia depends critically on monsoon rainfall. [202] Two monsoon systems exist in the region: [203] The summer monsoon: Wind blows from the southwest to most parts of the region. It accounts for 70%–90% of the annual precipitation. The winter monsoon: Wind blows from the northeast.
The Asian Low is part of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Winds from May to October are persistent southwesterly from the Indian Ocean and South China Sea as well as south-southwesterly or southerly over the western Pacific Ocean. This gradually generates the summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. [5]