Climatology of monsoon rains of Myanmar (Burma)

Roy, N. Sen; Kaur, Surinder

doi:10.1002/1097-0088(20000630)20:8<913::aid-joc485>3.0.co;2-u

Cited by 41 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Principal component analysis (PCA) has been widely used in the fields of hydrology, meteorology, and climatology to simplify large data sets for better understanding of climatological precipitation patterns (Ehrendorfer 1987;Baeriswyl and Rebetez 1997;Roy and Kaur 2000;Singh 2006). In this study, PCA was also conducted on the average monthly observed rainfall at different rainfall stations.…”

Section: Principal Component Analysis Of Average Monthly Rainfallsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to its neighboring countries, there are fewer publications on the climatology of Myanmar. Roy and Kaur (2000) studied the monthly precipitation of Myanmar, particularly the monsoon months (June to September), and delineated several distinctive homogenous precipitation zones across the country based on the annual precipitation in monsoon months. Of those zones, the Central Dry Zone (CDZ) is known to receive the lowest rainfall in the country, with a mean annual rainfall of less than 680 mm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The CDZ region-wide average annual rainfall accounts for 3.2% of the country-wide average annual rainfall, has no more than 50 rainy days annually and has a precipitation (P) to potential evapotranspiration (PET) ratio from 0.5 -0.65 (Cho 1999). As a result, the CDZ is classified as an arid zone (Roy and Kaur 2000), but with a semi-arid to dry-subhumid climate as defined by the rainfall index (Gratzfeld 2003) and aridity index (P/PET) by UNEP (1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, while agricultural irrigation is not available in most of the CDZ areas, the development of potential irrigation projects requires hydrological analysis involving daily to event-scale rainfalls. Although the CDZ as a whole is considered a homogenous precipitation zone based on the amounts of annual wet season precipitation (Roy and Kaur 2000), it has been realized that the spatial and temporal rainfall patterns of different scales (including daily, events, monthly and seasonal rainfall) need to be considered in making decisions regarding choosing suitable crops and managing forest and crop areas within the CDZ. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the spatial and temporal rainfall variation patterns at different scales in the CDZ of Myanmar.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial and temporal rainfall patterns in Central Dry Zone, Myanmar - A hydrological cross-scale analysis

Toe¹,

Kanzaki²,

Lien³

et al. 2017

Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci.

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Myanmar (Burma) is traditionally an agriculture-based country. However, irrigation is not available in most of its agricultural lands. This study focuses on the Central Dry Zone (CDZ), which is the driest part of Myanmar. Exploratory data analysis, semivariogram analysis and modeling, K-means cluster analysis and principal component analysis were conducted in this study to investigate the general CDZ climatology. The spatial and temporal rainfall variation patterns of different scales, including daily, event-scale and monthly rainfall are studied. A climatological monsoon break divides the wet season into two peaks. The monsoon break is the result of different climate dynamics -May-to-June period monsoon southwesterly and Augustto-October period tropical cyclone vorticity. Rainfall stations in different clusters identified by the K-means cluster analysis reflect the orographic effect and different climate dynamics, which influence the spatial and temporal rainfall variation patterns in the CDZ. Principal component analysis results for average monthly rainfall reveals that the first principal component mainly explains the spatial variabilities in average monthly rainfall in the CDZ. The second principal component explains the seasonal (temporal) variation in average monthly rainfall. It was found that during the wet season, spatial rainfall variations in the CDZ are more significant than the seasonal (temporal) rainfall variation. Understanding the spatial and temporal variability in CDZ rainfall can provide valuable information on potential water availability in both the time and spatial domains, which will then enable making sound cropland planning and forest management decisions.

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Section: Principal Component Analysis Of Average Monthly Rainfallsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Spatial and temporal rainfall patterns in Central Dry Zone, Myanmar - A hydrological cross-scale analysis

Toe¹,

Kanzaki²,

Lien³

et al. 2017

Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci.

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“…[2] Despite its profound impacts on much of the world's population, the past climate variability of the Asian monsoon system is still poorly known [Gadgil, 2003;Cook et al, 2010]. Such information is particularly scarce for the nation of Myanmar, where instrumental-based studies of monsoon climate dynamics have been extremely limited to date [Sen Roy and Kaur, 2000;Sen Roy and Sen Roy, 2011]. Myanmar (previously Burma) is one of the largest countries in southeast Asia, spanning from 10 to 28.5°N and 92 to 101°E (Figure 1), and it is directly impacted by the Indian/Asian monsoon as well as convective rainfall from the Bay of Bengal [Sen Roy and Kaur, 2000].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three centuries of Myanmar monsoon climate variability inferred from teak tree rings

D’Arrigo¹,

Palmer²,

Ummenhofer³

et al. 2011

Geophys. Res. Lett.

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Asian monsoon extremes critically impact much of the globe’s population. Key gaps in our understanding of monsoon climate remain due to sparse coverage of paleoclimatic information, despite intensified recent efforts. Here we describe a ring width chronology of teak, one of the first high‐resolution proxy records for the nation of Myanmar. Based on 29 samples from 20 living trees and spanning from 1613–2009, this record, from the Maingtha forest reserve north of Mandalay, helps fill a substantial gap in spatial coverage of paleoclimatic records for monsoon Asia. Teak growth is positively correlated with rainfall and Palmer Drought Severity Index variability over Myanmar, during and prior to the May–September monsoon season (e.g., r = 0.38 with Yangon rainfall, 0.001, n 68). Importantly, this record also correlates significantly with larger‐scale climate indices, including core Indian rainfall (23°N, 76°E; a particularly sensitive index of the monsoon), and the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The teak ring width value following the so‐called 1997–98 El Niño of the Century suggests that this was one of the most severe droughts in the past ∼300 years in Myanmar. Evidence for past dry conditions inferred for Myanmar is consistent with tree‐ring records of decadal megadroughts developed for Thailand and Vietnam. These results confirm the climate signature related to monsoon rainfall in the Myanmar teak record and the considerable potential for future development of climate‐sensitive chronologies from Myanmar and the broader region of monsoon Asia.

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Provenance of the Late Quaternary sediments in the Andaman Sea: Implications for monsoon variability and ocean circulation

Awasthi

Ray

Singh

et al. 2014

Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst.

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We present a geochemical and Sr-Nd isotopic study on a sediment core collected from the Andaman Sea in an attempt to reconstruct the Late Quaternary weathering and erosion patterns in the watersheds of the river systems of Myanmar and understand their controlling factors. Age control is based on nine radiocarbon dates and d18 O stratigraphy. The rate of sedimentation was strongly controlled by fluctuations of the monsoon. We identify three major sediment provenances: (1) the Irrawaddy catchment, (2) the western slopes of the Indo-Burman-Arakan (IBA) mountain ranges and the Andaman Islands, and (3) the catchments of Salween and Sittang and the Bengal shelf, with the first two contributing 30-60% of the material. Enhanced contributions from juvenile sources and corresponding positive shifts of d 18 O are observed at seven time periods (11-14, 20-23, 36, 45, 53, 57, and 62 ka) of which five are synchronous with cooling of the northern hemisphere, suggesting a link between the changes in sediment provenances and the shifting of the locus of the summer monsoon, southward from the Himalayas, without substantial reduction in intensity. Our data, and that from other cores in the region suggest that an eastward moving surface current disperses sediments, derived from the Bengal shelf and western margin of Myanmar, from the eastern Bay of Bengal into the western Andaman Sea and that its strength has increased since the LGM. The existence of this current during the LGM implies that the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal were well connected during the last glacial period.

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Climatology of monsoon rains of Myanmar (Burma)

Cited by 41 publications

References 5 publications

Spatial and temporal rainfall patterns in Central Dry Zone, Myanmar - A hydrological cross-scale analysis

Spatial and temporal rainfall patterns in Central Dry Zone, Myanmar - A hydrological cross-scale analysis

Three centuries of Myanmar monsoon climate variability inferred from teak tree rings

Provenance of the Late Quaternary sediments in the Andaman Sea: Implications for monsoon variability and ocean circulation

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