Understanding the Monsoon

The 2015 Halley Lecture delivered by Professor Peter J. Webster Each year the monsoons bring rainfall to nearly half the population of the planet. Small variations in monsoon rainfall can lead to flood or drought, feast or famine. Therefore, explaining the physics driving the monsoon and turning this knowledge into predictions is one of the great problems in science. In 1686 Sir Edmund Halley, with trade and navigation on his mind, suggested that the monsoon was driven by the buoyancy induced by the differential heating between the Indian Ocean and the landmass of South Asia. With a few embellishments, such as noting the importance of the rotation of Earth, his theory has stood the test of time. However, during the last 20 years, advances in our understanding of global fluid dynamics, suggest that a land-sea heating contrast is not sufficient. In fact, at the same latitudes of maximum monsoon summer rainfall, in other parts of the world there are deserts. Here we will develop an alternative, albeit simple, general theory of the monsoons and discuss how this may be translated into useful predictions and a greater understanding of how the monsoons will fair in a changing climate.

Om Podcasten

The Department of Physics public lecture series. An exciting series of lectures about the research at Oxford Physics take place throughout the academic year. Looking at topics diverse as the creation of the universe to the science of climate change. Features episodes previously published as: (1) 'Oxford Physics Alumni': "Informal interviews with physics alumni at events, lectures and other alumni related activities." (2) 'Physics and Philosophy: Arguments, Experiments and a Few Things in Between': "A series which explores some of the links between physics and philosophy, two of the most fundamental ways with which we try to answer our questions about the world around us. A number of the most pertinent topics which bridge the disciplines are discussed - the nature of space and time, the unpredictable results of quantum mechanics and their surprising consequences and perhaps most fundamentally, the nature of the mind and how far science can go towards explaining and understanding it. Featuring interviews with Dr. Christopher Palmer, Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Prof. Vlatko Vedral, Dr. David Wallace and Prof. Roger Penrose."