Large volcanic eruptions can help to forecast monsoons over India. This seasonal rainfall is key for the country’s agriculture and thus for feeding 1 billion people. As erratic as they are, volcanic eruptions improve the predictability, an Indian-German research team finds. What seems to be a paradox is, in fact, due to a stronger coupling between the monsoon over large parts of South and South-East Asia and the El Niño phenomenon after an eruption. Combining data from meteorological observations, climate records, computer model simulations and such geological archives as tree-rings, corals and ice-cores from past millennia of Earth history, the researchers found that a synchronization of the monsoon with the strongest mode of natural climate variability, El Niño, makes it easier to anticipate the strength of seasonal rainfall in the Indian subcontinent.
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Source: Phys.org