Changes in global monsoon circulations since 1950

We examined changes in several independent intensity indices of four major tropical monsoonal circulations for the period 1950-1998. These intensity indices included observed land surface precipitation and observed ocean surface pressure in the monsoon regions as well as upper-level divergence calculated at several standard levels from the NCAR/NCEP reanalysis. These values were averaged seasonally over appropriate regions of southeastern Asian, western Africa, eastern Africa and the Australia/Maritime continent and adjacent ocean areas. As a consistency check we also examined two secondary indices: mean sea level pressure trends and low level convergence both from the NCEP reanalysis. We find that in each of the four regions examined, a consistent picture emerges indicating significantly diminished monsoonal circulations over the period of record, evidence of diminished spatial maxima in the global hydrological cycle since 1950. Trends since 1979, the period of strongest reported surface warming, do not indicate any change in monsoon circulations. When strong ENSO years are removed from each of the time series the trends still show a general, significant reduction of monsoon intensity indicating that ENSO variability is not the direct cause for the observed weakening. Most previously reported model simulations of the effects of rising CO2 show an increase in monsoonal activity with rising global surface temperature. We find no support in these data for an increasing hydrological cycle or increasing extremes as hypothesized by greenhouse warming scenarios.