Entropy Evolution Characteristics Associated with the Development of the South Asian Monsoon

Abstract

Abstract The structure and evolution characteristics of atmospheric entropy production associated with the climatologic monsoon onset and evolution were investigated using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data. The entropy balance equation contains two parts. The first part is internal entropy production that corresponds to natural dissipation. The second part is external entropy production that is associated with lower-boundary entropy supply. It is shown that the dissipation process represented by internal entropy production can be used to describe the thermal and dynamical structures of the monsoon. The thermal dissipation due to turbulent vertical diffusion and convection is highly correlated to precipitation. The dynamic dissipation due to wind stress becomes very strong over the Arabian Sea and southwestern part of India in boreal summer, and dynamic dissipation can describe the monsoon structure more clearly than variables such as wind shear. The correlation between surface entropy supply and internal entropy production is so large that the surface entropy supply can also be used to evaluate the monsoon. Over the desert region of Rajasthan, the dissipation is relatively weaker than its surroundings owing to descending large-scale eddy flow and a weak convective flux. The analysis of atmospheric entropy provides a new way to describe the monsoon development characteristics, which differs from those derived from a traditional analysis method.