Drought -- National Drought Mitigation Center
Date of this Version
October 1996
Abstract
It has now been recognized that the single most important key to the earth’s year-to-year climate variability is the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. El Niño episodes directly affect the climate of at least half the planet and in many instances result in heavy loss of life and resources. The global impacts of El Niño events have been summarized in a review article by Bigg (1990), while the role of ENSO in Indian monsoon rainfall variability is given in Krishna Kumar et al. (1995). During the ENSO warm/ cold extremes—i.e., El Niño/La Niña events—the majority of the episodes induce below/above-normal rainfall over India. However, there have been deficient monsoons over India apart from these El Niño episodes (Das, 1991). Hence this article investigates the intensity of the droughts (i.e., deficient monsoons) over India due to El Niño and non-El Niño forcings. Similarly, the intensity of floods (ie., excess monsoons) is also examined with respect to the La Niña/non-La Niña episodes.
Comments
Published in Drought Network News October 1996. Published by the International Drought Information Center and the National Drought Mitigation Center, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.