Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2026, V. 23, No. 4, pp. 417-431
A study of the summer monsoon near the Hindustan Peninsula in the atmospheric precipitable water vapor field based on satellite microwave radiometer data: Part 2
А.V. Kuzmin 1 , D.M. Ermakov 1, 2 , A.G. Golovko 1 , R.D. Koniashov 1 1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
2 Kotelnikov Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics RAS, Fryazino Branch, Fryazino, Moscow Region, Russia
Accepted: 06.07.2026
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2026-23-4-417-431
In the first part of our article, published in 2025, it was shown that the field of precipitable water vapor (PWV), derived from of F16–F18 SSMIS (Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder) microwave radiometric satellite data, exhibits similar seasonal variations across all studied regions over Hindustan and surrounding waters of the Indian Ocean: the phase of lowest winter values is followed by an increase at an approximately constant rate, which varies only slightly among regions, and then by a plateau of maximum values, coinciding approximately with the onset of monsoon precipitation in the region. In the present study, mean PWV temporal dependences (templates) were constructed for each of the 11 designated areas near the Hindustan Peninsula. For this purpose, an iterative averaging scheme was employed, applied to the annual time series of PWV for each region, with a time shift (alignment). The stopping criterion for the iterative scheme was achieving maximum correlation between the template and the corresponding PWV time series across all years. The application of this approach pursued a dual objective. First, to confirm that the large-scale features of the PWV temporal evolution in each region are reproduced year after year with a high degree of similarity, and that interannual variability manifests primarily in the relative shift of the calendar dates marking the onset of PWV increase in each region. Second, to obtain the template itself for each region, i.e., the averaged PWV temporal pattern that exhibits maximum correlation with the data for each year under consideration. The resulting PWV templates indeed showed high correlation with the PWV data for each year (mostly exceeding 0.85). This confirms the initial hypothesis that the temporal evolution of PWV in the studied regions is almost entirely determined by the intra-annual migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Such systematic variation in PWV values enables the use of the constructed templates to investigate the feasibility and to develop specific approaches for predicting the onset date of the monsoon. Extending this approach to the entire Hindustan Peninsula by subdividing it into equally-sized regions appears promising.
The work was carried out within the framework of the state assignments of IKI RAS (Monitoring, registration No. 126031818938-6), in part of thematic processing and analysis of data, and IRE RAS (state registration No. 075-00395-25-00), in part of application to processing of interpolation algorithms for eliminating data gaps.
Keywords: global fields of precipitable water vapor, Indian summer monsoon, microwave radiometry, satellite radiothermovision
Full textReferences:
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