The Monsoonal Retreat...

"The earth seems to have been turned inside out. Its entrails are strewn about. The coal which has been drawn from below ground is blazing on the surface. By day and by night the country is glowing with fire" (James Nasmyth, 2010:134).

During a recent trip to the London Science Museum, I stumbled upon the "Climate Changing Stories" exhibition, and with it the above quote. It summarises humankind's unending quest for progress, with environmental effects an unfortunate and often under-appreciated by-product. It is humankind's seemingly insatiable appetite for resources that could well define the future South Asian monsoon.

From religion to the collapse of civilisations, IPCC latest to fashion must-haves, formation to effects, feast to famine...I've covered a lot of ground in this blog, so what really is the story? 

The IPCC AR5 noted that it is with 'low confidence' that changes in the South Asian monsoon are attributed to anthropogenic influence. It is the influence of natural variability (e.g. ENSO) that makes it hard to separate anthropogenic influence from the noise. Since its inception in 1875, the Indian Meteorological department has seen the forays of many striving to predict the monsoon, a task that remains a challenge today (Turner and Annamalai, 2012). The difficulty in modelling this phenomenon further complicates the attribution of changes to anthropogenic impacts. 

The need for reliable and actionable science is the key to policymakers making the correct decisions. "For South Asia, which is undergoing rapid economic development as well as supporting vast subsistence agriculture, this need is even more important" (Turner and Annamalai, 2012). Unnatural changes in the South Asian monsoon are afoot, and I believe the evidence presented in this blog demonstrates the sensitivity of this system to anthropogenic forcings; palaeoclimatic records evidence the abrupt changes between the two stable states of the monsoon, and we could well be pushing the monsoon towards a tipping point. It is likely that uncertainty will remain high due to the complex nature of the system, however reaching a 'tipping point' or failing to enforce mitigation/adaptation measures, would be catastrophic and so the time to act is upon us. Whether this will happen or not remains to be seen...     

...in the words of Voltaire, "Men argue. Nature acts".

Thanks for reading - TTFN