The factors affecting the climate of India

The factors affecting the climate

Climate of India is affected by the factors of latitude, altitude, distance from the seas, monsoon wind, relief features and jet stream.

Latitude

Latitudinally, India lies between 8°4'N and 37°6'N latitudes. The Tropic of cancer divides the country into two equal halves. The area located to the south of Tropic of cancer experiences high temperature and no severe cold season throughout the year whereas, the areas to the north of this parallel enjoys sub-tropical climate.

Altitude

When the altitude increases, The temperature decreases. Temperature decreases at the rate of 6.50C for every 1000 metres of ascent. It is called normal lapse rate.

Hence, places in the mountains are cooler than the places on the plains. Ooty and several other hill stations of south India and of the Himalayan ranges like Mussourie, Shimla etc., are much cooler than the places located on the Great Plains.

Find out the temperature of Ooty (2240m) when it is 350C in Chennai (6.7m)

Distance from the Sea

A large area of India, especially the peninsular region, is not very far from the sea and this entire area has a clear maritime influence on climate. This part of the country does not have a very clearly marked winter and the temperature is equable almost throughout the year. Areas of central and north India experience much seasonal variation in temperature due to the absence of influence of seas. Here, summers are hot and winters are cold. The annual temperature at Kochin does not exceed 30°C as its location is on the coast while it is as high as 40°C at Delhi, since it is located in the interior part. Air near the coast has more moisture and greater potential to produce precipitation. Due to this fact, the amount of rainfall at Kolkata located near the coast is 119 cm and it decreases to just 24 cm at Bikaner which is located in the interior part.

Monsoon Wind

The most dominant factor which affects the climate of India is the monsoon winds. These are seasonal reversal winds and India remains in the influence of these winds for a considerable part of a year. Though, the sun’s rays are vertical over the central part of India during the mid-June, the summer season ends in India by the end of May. It is because the onset of southwest monsoon brings down the temperature of the entire India and causes moderate to heavy rainfall in many parts of the country. Similarly, the climate of southeast India is also influenced by northeast monsoon.

Weather refers to the state of atmosphere of a place at a given point of time. Climate is the accumulation of daily and seasonal weather events of a given location over a period of 30-35 years.

Relief

Relief of India has a great bearing on major elements of climate such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, direction of winds and the amount of rainfall. The Himalayas acts as a barrier to the freezing cold wind blows from central Asia and keep the Indian subcontinent warm. As such the north India experiences tropical climate even during winter. During southwest monsoon, areas on the western slope of the Western Ghats receive heavy rainfall. On the contrary, vast areas of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil nadu lie in rain shadow or leeward side of the Western Ghats receive very little rainfall. During this season, Mangalore, located on the coast gets the rainfall of about 280 cm whereas the Bengaluru located on the leeward side receives only about 50 cm rainfall.

Jet Streams 

Jet streams are the fast moving winds blowing in a narrow zone in the upper atmosphere. According to the Jet stream theory, the onset of southwest monsoon is driven by the shift of the sub tropical westerly jet from the plains of India towards the Tibetan plateau. The easterly jet streams cause tropical depressions both during southwest monsoon and retreating monsoon.