Deficit to deluge: India’s swinging monsoon test

livemint.com:

climate change. However, over the years, the heavy rain days have been rising while rainy days are declining—leading to a skewed distribution—due to climate change. Further, the IMD said that predicting the severity of an extreme rainfall is difficult.

While it issued alerts for Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chandigarh ahead of the deluge, for Delhi it had only forecast moderate rains. Yes. Instead of rains spread across the four-month season, long dry spells are interspersed with heavy rainfall events.

This is a clear climate change signal, explains Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist. Warmer air holds more moisture and for a longer time. So, it does not rain for long periods.

But when it does, all that moisture gets dumped in a short time. Between 1 June and 11 July, 37% of India saw a rain deficit of 20% or more. In regions such as central Maharashtra, Marathwada, Karnataka, Kerala, Gangetic Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar, the rainfall deficit is more than 30%.

During this period, several parts witnessed excess rains including western UP (60% more than normal), Punjab and HP (more than double the normal), and parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat (more than three times the normal). The distribution of rains has been uneven across regions and time. Till 9 July, the area under kharif crops was 5% lower on-year, due to lower planting of rice, pulses and oilseeds.

While the lag in planting area will likely shrink as the numbers are updated, the impact of truant rains will be felt by farmers. Whether hit by acute deficit or excess rains, farmers will be spending on replanting and associated costs as saplings wither or get washed out. These costs are rarely reflected in official data.