Influence of Changes in the Prevailing Synoptic Conditions on the Response of Aerosol Characteristics to Land- and Sea-Breeze Circulations at a Coastal Station

The changes in the response of near surfaceaerosol properties to land- and sea-breezecirculations, associated with the changes in the prevailing synoptic meteorological conditions, are examined for a tropical coastal station. Aerosol properties are nearly similar in both the breeze regimes (land and sea) during seasons of marine airmass while they are distinct during seasons of continental airmass. As the prevailing winds shift from continental to marine and the ambient weather changes from winter conditions to the humid monsoon season, the submicron mode, which dominated the aerosol mass-size distribution, is largely suppressed and the dominance of the super micron mode increases. During periods of continental air mass (winter), the aerosol loading is significantly higher in the land-breeze regime, (particularly in the submicron range) but as the winds shift to marine, the loading initially becomes insensitive to the breeze regimes and later becomes higher in the sea-breeze regime, particularly in the super micron range.     

Role of TBO and ENSO scale ocean–atmosphere interaction in the Indo-Pacific region on Asian summer monsoon variability

Interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall has two dominant periodicities, one on the quasi-biennial (2–3 year) time scale corresponding to tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO) and the other on low frequency (3–7 year) corresponding to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the present study, the spatial and temporal patterns of various atmospheric and oceanic parameters associated with the Indian summer monsoon on the above two periodicities were investigated using NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data sets for the period 1950–2005. Influences of Indian and Pacific Ocean SSTs on the monsoon season rainfall are different for both of the time scales. Seasonal evolution and movement of SST and Walker circulation are also different. SST and velocity potential anomalies are southeast propagating on the TBO scale, while they are stationary on the ENSO scale. Latent heat flux and relative humidity anomalies over the Indian Ocean and local Hadley circulation between the Indian monsoon region and adjacent oceans have interannual variability only on the TBO time scale. Local processes over the Indian Ocean determine the Indian Ocean SST in biennial periodicity, while the effect of equatorial east Pacific SST is significant in the ENSO periodicity. TBO scale variability is dependent on the local factors of the Indian Ocean and the Indian summer monsoon, while the ENSO scale processes are remotely controlled by the Pacific Ocean.     

Seasonal extreme rainfall over Indian monsoon region: a moisture budget analysis to distinguish the role of ENSO and non-ENSO forcing

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) variability of ± 10% of its long-term mean leads to flood and drought, affecting the life and economic...     

Inter-annual variability and skill of tropical rainfall and SST in APCC seasonal forecast models

Climate Dynamics - The present study explored the performance of the current coupled models obtained from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Climate Centre (APCC) in representing the...     

A reinterpretation of two chertbreccias from the Proterozoic basins of India

Several horizons of a unique lithotype called “chertbreccia” are interbedded within the Proterozoic platform sediments of the Peninsular India. These cherty rocks with brecciated texture appearing as blocky masses were earlier diversely interpreted as being products of disparate processes such as fault-zone breccias, collapse breccias, and so on. Two of these horizons, one from the Kaladgi Basin (Dharwar Craton) and the other from the Dhar Forest Inlier of the Vindhyanchal Basin (Bundelkhand — Aravalli Craton) are compared in context of their geological setting, field relations and petrological constitution. A model of the mode of development of these peculiar rocks is reconstructed, taking into account their characters and limitations of previous interpretations. They are interpreted as transported debris deposits of syntectonogenic material released during the episodic activity of the growth faults of the Kaladgi and Vindhyanchal Basins that was diagenetically silicified.     

Local Hadley circulation over the Asian monsoon region associated with the Tropospheric Biennial Oscillation

Summary The Tropospheric Biennial Oscillation (TBO), a major interannual variation phenomenon in the Indo-Pacific region, is the result of strong ocean-atmosphere coupling over the Asian-Australian monsoon area. Along with other meteorological and oceanographic parameters, the tropical circulation also exhibits interannual oscillations. Even though the TBO is the result of strong air–sea interaction, the circulation cells during TBO years are, as yet, not well understood. In the present study, an attempt has been made to understand the interannual variability of the mean meridional circulation and local monsoon circulation over south Asia in connection with the TBO. The stream function computed from the zonal mean meridional wind component of NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data for the years 1950–2003 is used to represent the mean meridional circulation. Mean meridional mass transport in the topics reverses from a weak monsoon to a strong monsoon in the presence of ENSO, but in normal TBO years mean transport remains weak across the Northern Hemisphere. The meridional temperature gradient, which drives the mean meridional circulation, also shows no reversal during the normal TBO cycle. The local Hadley circulation over the monsoon area follows the TBO cycle with anomalous ascent (descent) in strong (weak) monsoon years. During normal TBO years, the Equatorial region and Indian monsoon areas exhibit opposite local Hadley circulation anomalies. Authors’ addresses: Prasanth A. Pillai, Research Scholar, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Lakeside Campus, Cochin 682016, India; K. Mohan Kumar, Professor & Dean, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Lakeside Campus, Cochin 682016, India.     

Biodiversity and seasonal variation of benthic macrofauna in Minicoy Island, Lakshadweep, India

From the Indian coast only limited data are available on the benthic fauna of the seagrass communities. In this study, seasonal variation in the distribution of macrobenthos and influence of environmental parameters was explored at four seagrass beds and two mangrove stations along the Minicoy Island, Lakshadweep, India, from September 1999 to August 2001. A total of 160 macrobenthic species from eight major groups represented the macrofauna of the Minicoy Island. Of the identified taxa, molluscs 70（gastropods 41.46%, bivalves 7.5%）, polychaetes 27（16.88%）, crustaceans 30（18.75%）, echinoderms 11（6.88%） and remaining others. Average seasonal abundance of benthic macrofauna ranged from 219 to 711 ind./m2, species diversity varied from 1.45 to 3.64 bits per individual, species richness index ranged from 4.01 to 26.17, evenness 0.69 to 1.66. In general, the higher abundance and species diversity was noticed in southern seagrass stations and northern seagrass stations, but in the mangrove stations comparatively low species diversity was observed. Three-way analysis of variance indicated that all communities resulted as being significantly different between seagrass and mangrove station, mainly when the seasonal interaction was considered. Multivariate analyses were employed to help define benthic characteristic and the relationship between environmental parameters at the six monitoring stations. Results of cluster analyses and multidimensional scale plot suggest that for mangrove region, different physiographic provinces, lower salinity, dissolved oxygen and sediment biotic structure have a higher influence on the species composition and diversity than other oceanographic conditions.     

Role of ocean–atmosphere interaction on northward propagation of Indian summer monsoon intra-seasonal oscillations (MISO)

Atmospheric dynamical mechanisms have been prevalently used to explain the characteristics of the summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation (MISO), which dictates the wet and dry spells of the monsoon rainfall. Recent studies show that ocean–atmosphere coupling has a vital role in simulating the observed amplitude and relationship between precipitation and sea surface temperature (SST) at the intraseasonal scale. However it is not clear whether this role is simply ‘passive’ response to the atmospheric forcing alone, or ‘active’ in modulating the northward propagation of MISO, and also whether the extent to which it modulates is considerably noteworthy. Using coupled NCEP–Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) model and its atmospheric component the Global Forecast System (GFS), we investigate the relative role of the atmospheric dynamics and the ocean–atmosphere coupling in the initiation, maintenance, and northward propagation of MISO. Three numerical simulations are performed including (1) CFSv2 coupled with high frequency interactive SST, the GFS forced with both (2) observed monthly SST (interpolated to daily) and (3) daily SST obtained from the CFSv2 simulations. Both CFSv2 and GFS simulate MISO of slightly higher period (~60 days) than observations (~45 days) and have reasonable seasonal rainfall over India. While MISO simulated by CFSv2 has realistic northward propagation, both the GFS model experiments show standing mode of MISO over India with no northward propagation of convection from the equator. The improvement in northward propagation in CFSv2, therefore, may not be due to improvement of the model physics in the atmospheric component alone. Our analysis indicates that even with the presence of conducive vertical wind shear, the absence of meridional humidity gradient and moistening of the atmosphere column north of convection hinders the northward movement of convection in GFS. This moistening mechanism works only in the presence of an ‘active’ ocean. In CFSv2, the lead-lag relationship between the atmospheric fluxes, SST and convection are maintained, while such lead-lag is unrealistic in the uncoupled simulations. This leads to the conclusion that high frequent and interactive ocean–atmosphere coupling is a necessary and crucial condition for reproducing the realistic northward propagation of MISO in this particular model.     

Long-term changes in the cosmic-ray diurnal anisotropy

A detailed study has been conducted on the long-term changes in diurnal anisotropy of cosmic rays for the two solar cycles (20 and 21) during the period 1965–1990; this shows that the amplitude of the anisotropy is related to the characteristics of high and low amplitude days. The occurrence of high amplitude days are found to be positively correlated with the sunspot cycle while the low amplitude days are correlated negatively with the sunspot cycle. Further, the variability of the time of maximum of the aniotropy indicates that it essentially is composed of two components; one in the 1800 hours (corotation) direction and the other, an additional component in the 1500 hours direction (45° east of the S-N line) apparently caused by the reversal of the solar polar magnetic field. Our observations also suggest that the direction of the anisotropy of high- and low-amplitude days contribute significantly to the long-term behaviour of the diurnal anisotropy as it produces an additional component of cosmic rays in the radial (1200 hours) direction.     

Implications of new $$^{40}\hbox {Ar}/^{39}\hbox {Ar}$$ age of Mallapur Intrusives on the chronology and evolution of the Kaladgi Basin,Dharwar Craton,India

The Kaladgi Basin on the northern edge of the Dharwar craton has characters diverse from the other epicratonic Purana basins of Peninsular India. Sedimentological studies in the basin have established the presence of three cycles of flooding separated by an event of intra-basinal deformation accompanied by low grade incipient metamorphism. The overall structural configuration of the basin indicates its development by supracrustal extension accompanied by shearing in a trans-tensional regime during the Mesoproterozoic. This was followed by sagging that yielded Neoproterozoic sedimentation in a successor nested basin. \(^{40}\)Ar/\(^{39}\)Ar dating of an intrusive mafic dyke along the axial plane of a fold has yielded a plateau age of \(1154{\pm }4\,\hbox {Ma}\). This helps constraint the age of the various events during the evolution of this basin.