High resolution daily gridded rainfall data for the Indian region: Analysis of break and active monsoon spells

Here, we report the development of a high resolution (1° x 1° lat./long.) gridded daily rainfall dataset for the Indian region. There are only 1803 stations with mini¬mum 90% data availability during the analysis period (1951-2003). For the analysis, we have followed the in¬terpolation method proposed by Shepard. Standard quality-controls were performed before carrying out the interpolation analysis. Comparison with similar global gridded rainfall datasets revealed that the pre¬sent rainfall analysis is better in accurate representation of spatial rainfall variation. Using this gridded rainfall dataset, an analysis was made to identify the break and active periods during the southwest monsoon season (June–September). Break (active) periods during the monsoon season were iden¬tified as those in which the standardized daily rainfall anomaly averaged over Central India (21-27°N, 72¬85°E) is less than –1.0 (more than 1.0). The break peri¬ods thus identified for the period 1951-2003 were comparable with those identified by earlier studies. Contrary to a recent study, no evidence was found for any statistically significant trends in the number of break or active days during the period 1951-2003. This gridded rainfall dataset is available for non¬commercial applications.

[1]  D. Shepard.  A two-dimensional interpolation function for irregularly-spaced data , 1968, ACM National Conference.

[2]  B. Parthasarathy,et al.  Some Features of a Long Homogeneous Series of Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall , 1978 .

[3]  William D. Philpot,et al.  Small-Scale Climate Maps: A Sensitivity Analysis of Some Common Assumptions Associated with Grid-Point Interpolation and Contouring , 1985 .

[4]  H. J. Thiébaux,et al.  Spatial objective analysis : with applications in atmospheric science , 1987 .

[5]  N. Bussières,et al.  The objective analysis of daily rainfall by distance weighting schemes on a Mesoscale grid , 1989 .

[6]  D. Hartmann,et al.  Intraseasonal Periodicities in Indian Rainfall , 1989 .

[7]  U. Schneider,et al.  Terrestrial Precipitation Analysis: Operational Method and Required Density of Point Measurements , 1994 .

[8]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[9]  A. Dai,et al.  Surface Observed Global Land Precipitation Variations during 1900-88 , 1997 .

[10]  J. Janowiak,et al.  The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) combined precipitation dataset , 1997 .

[11]  P. Xie,et al.  Global Precipitation: A 17-Year Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates, and Numerical Model Outputs , 1997 .

[12]  Michael F. Hutchinson,et al.  Interpolation of Rainfall Data with Thin Plate Smoothing Splines - Part I: Two Dimensional Smoothing of Data with Short Range Correlation , 1998 .

[13]  P. Jones,et al.  Representing Twentieth-Century Space–Time Climate Variability. Part I: Development of a 1961–90 Mean Monthly Terrestrial Climatology , 1999 .

[14]  M. Kanamitsu,et al.  The Comparison of Two Merged Rain Gauge–Satellite Precipitation Datasets , 2000 .

[15]  J. Shukla,et al.  Intraseasonal and Interannual Variability of Rainfall over India , 2000 .

[16]  J. Janowiak,et al.  Global Land Precipitation: A 50-yr Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations , 2002 .

[17]  Sulochana Gadgil,et al.  On breaks of the Indian monsoon , 2003 .

[18]  Daily Rainfall for the Indian Monsoon Region from Merged Satellite and Rain Gauge Values: Large-Scale Analysis from Real-Time Data , 2003 .

[19]  J. Janowiak,et al.  The Version 2 Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Precipitation Analysis (1979-Present) , 2003 .

[20]  A New Monthly Precipitation Climatology for the Global Land Areas for the Period 1951 to 2000 , 2004 .

[21]  Weakening trend of the southwest monsoon current through peninsular India from 1950 to the present , 2005 .

[22]  A. Sterl,et al.  The ERA‐40 re‐analysis , 2005 .

[23]  J. Shukla,et al.  Intraseasonal and Seasonally Persisting Patterns of Indian Monsoon Rainfall , 2007 .