We have all heard someone talk about monsoons or seen them on the television news. However, those who live near the tropical belt have done much more than hear about them: they are very likely to live regularly. Many times the term monsoon is used incorrectly to refer to torrential rains, but this atmospheric phenomenon is much more than a rain of great volume and force.
If you want to know more about what are monsoons, their types and consequencesContinue reading this interesting article by Ecologist Verde to discover everything about this atmospheric phenomenon.
What are monsoons
A monsoon is basically a seasonal wind. The monsoon winds They occur due to the displacement of the tropical rain belt. The monsoon always flows from the cold regions to the warmer ones, causing drastic changes in the climate. Its stationary character is evident in the etymology of the word, since it derives from mausim, which in Arabic means season.
When we speak of monsoons we refer mainly to those that occur in southern Asia and the Indian Ocean, although they also occur in other areas with a monsoon tropical climate or monsoon climate. One of the best known consequences of monsoons is the Torrential rains that the summer monsoons usually bring, but they are not the only ones and, in fact, not all monsoons involve heavy rainfall. Later we will talk about the main monsoon characteristics according to its two great types.
How the monsoons form
Both the land and the sea have the ability to absorb heat from the sun. However, their physical properties are different: while sea water retains temperature for longer, land heats up and cools much faster.
When the temperature difference between the land and the sea is large, a pressure difference which ends up leading to the winds and rainfall associated with the monsoon.
Types of monsoons and their characteristics
Now that you know better what are monsoons, we delve into the types of monsoons and their characteristics. There is not one monsoon season, if not two, that give rise to the two types of monsoons that exist: the summer and the winter.
Summer monsoon
In the summer months, with the land warming faster than the sea, the difference in pressure causes the cooler ocean breeze to blow towards land.
This causes the hot air of the land to be loaded with the humidity that brings the oceanic breeze. This rises to a great height causing a local depression. The air then cools rapidly over the land itself instead of returning to the ocean, and discharges its precipitation right there, while the ocean breeze continues to bring in moist air and fuel the cycle.
This monsoon tends to start in India between March and June, and to end between September and November. Its dates vary depending on the specific climatic circumstances of each season, which can make it more or less severe in some years, and even interrupt it.
Winter monsoon
The winter monsoon occurs much like the summer monsoon, but in a reverse process. The land surface cools faster than ocean water, and this time the wind blows from the mainland to the sea. The rains, therefore, occur in this case over the ocean, which tends to cause dry seasons on land, although this characteristic is not always fulfilled.
The dry monsoon It occurs in Asia approximately between October and April, and thanks to the influence of the Himalayas, its effects are less powerful than those of the summer monsoon.
Places where there are monsoons
As we have said, the main monsoons occur in Asia, specifically in the Indian Ocean, but they are not the only ones. These are some of the places where there are monsoons:
- The asian monsoon It affects areas further north, to countries such as China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. In addition, the Asian-Australian monsoon also occurs, covering from the northern part of Australia to the Russian coast of the Pacific Ocean.
- In Africa there is West Sub-Saharan Africa monsoon, given by the system that the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean create when they meet.
- In North America, the winds of the Gulf of Mexico and those of the Gulf of California cause a monsoon that begins in Mexico and then moves north, through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Consequences of the monsoons
In summary, these are the main consequences of the monsoons, as many good as bad:
- India and much of Southeast Asia benefit greatly from the summer monsoon, on which they depend economically to a great extent. His Agriculture and Livestock, based on products such as cotton or rice, which are highly dependent on water, need these large amounts of rainfall to develop properly.
- The increase in rainfall also causes a great contribution of energy from hydroelectric plants, and the high humidity makes forest fires difficult.
- But monsoons also have damaging effects, such as great floods and also large landslides that frequently cause great damage to populations and crops.
- In addition, a weak monsoon will not bring enough rain for the plantations to produce a good harvest or provide an abundance of pasture for livestock, thus causing economic losses.
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