Early monsoon baffles Indian officials

NDTV.com (India): The early arrival of the monsoon in Delhi, breaking a 108-year old record, has puzzled weather officials. It punches a hole in the entrenched theory - the hotter it gets, the better the chances of the monsoon. But this year, the north has been cooler by almost 1.5 degrees centigrade. Yet, it took merely 12 days, instead of 30, for the monsoon to cover most of India.

So is this freak weather? Is it climate change? ''This early onset has really surprised us and we need to do some data analysis as to why it has happened and at present, we do not have much knowledge as to why it has happened,'' said Dr M Rajeevan, Director, National Climate Centre, IMD, Pune. ''We need to do more studies on the monsoon, but it is very difficult to link this situation to climate change,'' he added.

Monsoon clouds near Nagercoil (not Delhi), photo by "PlaneMad," Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2