'Frequent monsoon and drought years in coming decades'

The rapid warming of the equatorial Indian Ocean region and cooling of atmosphere over the Eurasian continent centered around China would lead to frequent monsoon and drought years in the coming decades, according to scientists.
"The emission of sulphate aerosols owing to the human actions causes the cooling of atmosphere in the region and this phenomenon directly affects the monsoon in India," said P V Joseph, Scientist at Nansen Environmental Research Centre- India (NERCI), while delivering a keynote address at the Indo-EU joint workshop here.
The workshop was jointly organized by Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) and NERCI under the INDO-EU MARICLIM project.

"We are going to face difficult times in the future. The cooler upper tropospheric temperature in the Tibetan plateau region and the regions to the north (Central China) was associated with frequent monsoon droughts over India during the three decades from 1961 to 1990.
"The temperature of this region is having strong decreasing linear trend from 1950 that is feared to cause frequent monsoon drought years in the country in the coming decades", said Joseph, the former Director of Meteorological Department, said.
Joseph, who undertook a study on the monsoon variability under the INDO-EU MARICLIM project, also said that the moisture content of the atmosphere over the Arabian sea has been continuously decreasing for the last 50 years.

The study is based on the collaborative research initiatives between the European Union and India.
The other two major areas included in the project other than monsoon variability are marine ecosystem and coastal zone management.