Can Air Pollution make the Monsoon Disappear?

Human activities have been affecting the climate. The degree to which they do so have been argued about by various researchers based on their science project findings. There have been many recorded instances where pollution has caused harm to the ecosystem, and now it seems that air pollution may cost us the rainy season.

Some researchers at Princeton University published a paper in the September 2011 edition of Science. The paper recorded a 5% reduction in rainfall during the monsoon season in India over the last five decades. As per the scientists it was the result of aerosols formed by wood burning and car emissions that were to blame for this drastic climate pattern change.

Aerosols are fine particles suspended in the air which tend to reflect sunlight back into outer space. This reduces the heat of the sun and disrupts the process which would bring rain to the Indian subcontinent region. However just how the human activity affects the monsoons is not discussed.

There have been other studies which have said that the air pollution is responsible for increasing the intensity of the rainfall during the monsoon season. It is difficult to tell which study to believe at this stage, but one thing all these science projects do prove is that the human beings are irrevocably changing the climate.