Changing Rainfall Patterns

What we know

• A decline in monsoon rainfall since the 1950s has already been observed. The frequency of heavy rainfall events has also increased.

What could happen

• A 2°C rise in the world’s average temperatures will make India’s summer monsoon highly unpredictable.
• At 4°C warming, an extremely wet monsoon that currently has a chance of occurring only once in 100 years is projected to occur every 10 years by the end of the century.
• An abrupt change in the monsoon could precipitate a major crisis, triggering more frequent droughts as well as greater flooding in large parts of India.
• India’s northwest coast to the south eastern ....