Geophysical Research Letters

RESEARCH LETTER Moisture Supply From the Western Ghats Forests

10.1029/2018GL078198
to Water Deficit East Coast of India
Key Points: Supantha Paul1 , Subimal Ghosh1,2 , K. Rajendran3, and Raghu Murtugudde2,4
• Forests of West Coast in India supply
25–40% (average) of moisture to the 1
Interdisciplinary Program in Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, 2Department of Civil
southwest monsoon rainfall over the
east coast Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, 3CSIR–Fourth Paradigm Institute (CSIR–4PI), Bangalore,
• The contributions from the forests of India, 4Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Centre/DOAS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Western Ghats to the monsoon rainfall
over the East Coast reach 50% during
dry periods Abstract The mountainous western coast of India, known as the Western Ghats, is considered to be a
• The urgent need to stop the biodiversity hot spot, but it is under a constant threat due to human activities. The region is characterized
deforestation of WG not only to retain
biodiversity but also to maintain the
by high orographic monsoon precipitation resulting in dense vegetation cover. Feedback of such a dense
water cycle over Peninsular India is vegetation on the southwest monsoon rainfall is not yet explored. Here we perform regional climate
emphasized simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting model and find that evapotranspiration from the
vegetation of Western Ghats contributes 25–40% of the southwest monsoon rainfall over the water-deficit
Supporting Information: state of Tamil Nadu. This contribution reaches 50% during deficit monsoon years or dry spells within a season.
• Supporting Information S1 Our findings suggest that recent deforestation in this area will affect not only the biodiversity of the region
but also the water availability over Peninsular India, which is already impacted by water scarcity.
Correspondence to:
S. Ghosh,
[email protected]
Plain Language Summary Forests over the Western Ghats (WG) region at the west coast of India
are suffering from severe deforestation. We find that the vegetation over the WG region contributes
moisture to the precipitation of the water-deficit state of Tamil Nadu and it reaches as high as 40% in many of
Citation: the regions. Tamil Nadu is at present is under severe water crisis due to interstate water sharing and related
Paul, S., Ghosh, S., Rajendran, K., &
Murtugudde, R. (2018). Moisture supply controversies. We emphasize the urgent need of enforcing strict laws to stop the deforestation of WG not
from the Western Ghats forests to water only to retain bio-diversity but also to maintain the water cycle over these semiarid parts of Peninsular India.
deficit East Coast of India. Geophysical
Research Letters, 45, 4337–4344. https://
doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078198
1. Introduction
Received 21 FEB 2018
The Western Ghats (WG) runs parallel to the entire western coast of the Indian peninsula and extends across
Accepted 16 APR 2018
Accepted article online 30 APR 2018 the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The mountain range generates very high
Published online 9 MAY 2018 orographic rainfall since it is almost perpendicular to the moisture-laden Southwest monsoon winds. This
bountiful rain supports a thick vegetation and forest cover over this region. The WG are also considered
one of the top eight hottest hot spots for biodiversity in the world (Myers et al., 2000) with over 400 biological
species and seven distinct vegetation types (Utkarsh et al., 1998). Diversity of plant species is closely related
to the number of rainy days along the mountain range (Gadgil, 1996). The length of the dry season, human
interference, and the ecological resilience of the landscape (Pascal et al., 2004) influence the distribution of
primary vegetation types in the WG. This region also has one of the richest evergreen forests with a number
of distinct species. However, during recent periods, there has been a gradual but significant loss of forest
cover (Reddy et al., 2016). In the district of Uttara Kannada in Karnataka, forest cover has declined by 50%
(Gadgil, 1996), while the evergreen forest in Kerala is currently facing extinction (Ramesh et al., 1997) with
the rate of deforestation accelerating during recent decades (Chattopadhyay, 1985; Ramesh et al., 1997;
Reddy et al., 2016).
Such a rich vegetation cover can be expected to interact with the atmospheric moisture loading through eva-
potranspiration (ET) and potentially play an important role in monsoon precipitation downstream. However,
such interactions have not been reported yet to the best of our knowledge. Here we attempt to quantify the
contributions from the WG vegetation and forest cover to the southwest monsoon rainfall (rainfall during
June to September). Recent studies (Pathak et al., 2017) have argued that the Ganga Basin is one of the major
land moisture sources for monsoon rainfall. The Ganga Basin gets much attention due to its huge size and
intense agricultural activities. In comparison, the area of WG is quite small and hence its impacts on monsoon
rainfall over the WG itself and Peninsular India has not attracted any attention. Other studies (Devaraju, Bala,
©2018. American Geophysical Union.
& Modak, 2015; Devaraju, Bala, & Nemani, 2015; Quesada et al., 2017) show significant impacts of deforesta-
All Rights Reserved. tion on monsoon rainfall, but none of them really have focused on the biodiversity hot spot of India, that is,

PAUL ET AL. 4337

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

the forests of WG. Global studies show that vegetation plays an important role (Bonan, 2008) in generating
precipitation over the Amazon forest. During the dry season over the Amazon, the forest cover results in a
lower albedo, higher net radiation, and greater ET compared to pastureland (da Rocha et al., 2004; von
Randow et al., 2004). These factors are found to help in forming a shallow, cool, and moist boundary layer
affecting precipitation. Medvigy et al. (2013) report that complete deforestation of the Amazon will lead to
10%–20% precipitation reduction in the remote coastal northwest United States. Lawrence and Vandecar
(2014) have shown that beyond a critical deforestation threshold (clearing forests beyond 30–50%), rainfall
declines irrespective of the type of forest cover. Reduction in forest cover over the tropical band covering
18.75°S—15°N was found to decrease precipitation over the Amazon by 138 mm/year with increase in
temperatures (Bathiany et al., 2010). Boisier et al. (2012) and de Noblet-Ducoudré et al. (2012) studied the role
of different representations of land use land cover (LULC) maps from multiple sources on the uncertainties in
model simulations of heat fluxes. And yet, there is a dearth of studies on the role of WG vegetation in the
precipitation variability during the Indian summer monsoon. Here we present the first such study. We
perform numerical simulations of the Indian monsoon with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)
model coupled to the Community Land Model (CLM). Two simulations are performed: one with and one
without WG vegetation. The results are compared to understand the role of vegetation.

2. Method
In the present study, we employ the WRF model (Skamarock et al., 2008) to simulate the Indian Summer
Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) and to perform sensitivity experiments to understand the impacts of WG. WRF is
considered the next-generation mesoscale numerical weather prediction system. WRF is coupled with the
state-of-the-art CLM version 4 (Oleson et al., 2010) to analyze land surface feedback processes and impacts
of LULC change on regional climate (Paul et al., 2016; Pielke et al., 2002).
In each grid cell, the land surface is represented by five primary subgrid land cover types (glacier, lake,
wetland, urban, and vegetated). The vegetation is represented with plant functional types (PFT), each with
a distinct leaf area index, stem area index, and canopy height. Each subgrid land cover type and PFT patch
is considered as a separate column for energy and water calculations (see the supporting information for
further details).
The coupled WRF-CLM prescribes static geographical information and dynamic atmospheric variables as
boundary conditions. Static geographic data set generally includes LULC information, vegetation fraction,
orography, and soil properties. This data set is global and is provided with the model (WRF) but can be
updated for a region of interest. Atmospheric variables specified as boundary conditions at lateral boundaries
include pressure and surface level data at 6-hourly intervals and are obtained from ERA (European Reanalysis)
data. The model domain is presented in Figure 1a. The horizontal resolution chosen to be 30 km, which is
sufficient to resolve the WG reasonably well (Srinivas et al., 2013). The model domain has 178 grid points
in the east-west direction and 193 grid points in the north-south direction with 30 levels in the vertical.
The number of grid cells is 1,470 for peninsular India and 321 for WG region. A spectral nudging technique
is applied in both zonal and meridional directions for winds (U and V) and temperature (T) with a predefined
wave numbers for U, V, and T at each level (Miguez-Macho et al., 2004) above the planetary boundary layer to
retain the large-scale features while allowing regional model to develop its own small-scale atmospheric fea-
tures within the planetary boundary layer. Earlier studies (Devanand et al., 2017; Paul et al., 2016) have
suggested that such a nudging improves simulations of monsoon precipitation.
The land cover data that provide the details of vegetation over the WG are obtained from Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) ) for the year 2005. The major vegetation types over the
WG as obtained from MODIS are evergreen broadleaf forests and woody savannas (Figure 1b). Gridded
fractions of different PFTs considered for the regional simulations are shown in Figure S1. Here we perform
two simulations: (1) a control simulation with the prescribed vegetation over the WG and (2) a sensitivity
experiment with no vegetation over the WG (Figure 1c). Both the simulations are performed for the monsoon
season (June to September) during 1990–2015. For each of the seasons, a one-month spin-up is performed,
which is considered sufficient for atmospheric adjustments under imposed lateral boundary conditions
(Giorgi & Mearns, 1999). For example, a 20-day spin-up time was used for the seasonal simulations of
Indian monsoon rainfall performed by Srinivas et al. (2013). Further, the premonsoon rainfall is very low

PAUL ET AL. 4338

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

Figure 1. (a) The domain for the WRF simulations used for this study. (b) The MODIS land cover classification. (c) Western Ghats with modified land cover (no vegeta-
tion) is also shown.

compared to the monsoon seasonal rainfall. Hence, the contribution from per-monsoon rainfall to the
monsoon precipitation that comes through recharge of soil moisture and subsequent transpiration from
vegetation (with low leaf area due to dry premonsoon condition) is assumed to be small. The differences
between the two model experiments are analyzed below to quantify the impact of WG vegetation cover
on ISMR. Details of coupled WRF-CLM (Bonan et al., 2002; Dudhia, 1989; Hong et al., 2004, 2006; Jiménez
et al., 2011; Kain, 2004; Mlawer et al., 1997; Monin & Obukhov, 1954; Oleson et al., 2010; Subin et al., 2011)
with different parameterization schemes are discussed in the supporting information.

3. Results and Discussion

We first evaluate the control run with respect to the observed gridded rainfall data at 0.25° spatial resolution
obtained from India Meteorological Department (Pai et al., 2014). The evaluation is performed for entire India
(Figure S2, first column), Peninsular India including WG (Figure S2, second column) and the WG alone (Figure S2,
third column). The model faithfully reproduces precipitation climatology for all the three regions, but there is
a slight underestimation over WG, which may be because of the inadequate model resolution to capture the
details of the highly varying orography. We further test the ability of the model to capture the spatial
patterns. The spatial probability density functions of precipitation are plotted for observed and simulated
precipitation for all the three regions (Figures S2d–S2f). The patterns are well captured although the peaks
are underestimated. This also may be attributed to the scales of topography (Hariprasad et al., 2011), which
are finer than model resolution and hence are not fully resolved. The spatial correlations Figures S2g–S2i)
offer confidence for using the model for diagnosing the impacts of WG vegetation on ISMR.
We present (Figure 2) the differences between the modeled precipitation over Peninsular India from the
sensitivity simulation with no vegetation over WG and control simulation (i.e., with prescribed WG vegeta-
tion). This presents the likely impacts of deforestation over WG on the monsoon precipitation over peninsular
India. We find a significant drop in rainfall (statistically significant at 0.05 level) when vegetation is removed
with values ranging from 1 to 2.5 mm/day (Figure 2a). This amounts to an average of around 25% of the total
over the southern Peninsular India (state of Tamil Nadu shown in Figure 2d). Tamil Nadu receives an annual
mean rainfall of 960 mm (average of years 1951–2000; data are obtained from Indian Meteorological
Department), of which 33% occurs during June to September. During the Kharif season (agricultural season
starting during June), Tamil Nadu receives very low rainfall and that significantly affects the agricultural activ-
ities. Hence, the moisture contribution from the vegetation of WG plays a very important role in meeting the
water demand of Tamil Nadu during the southwest monsoon season.
We further present the likely impacts of deforestation over the WG on the rainfall over Peninsular India during
the wet and dry spells of summer monsoon months (June-to-September). Our definition for dry spell over

PAUL ET AL. 4339

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

Figure 2. (a–f) Differences between the simulated precipitation as obtained without vegetation (simulation without vegetation) and with vegetation over Western
Ghats (control simulation). The top row presents the values, and bottom row presents the same as percentages. The columns represent location of Tamil Nadu (first
column), seasonal rainfall (second column), rainfall during dry spells (third column), and wet spells (fourth column).

Peninsular India is very similar to that used for defining break period over Central India by Rajeevan et al.
(2010). A 5-day moving average of the daily rainfall time series (only for summer monsoon) over the penin-
sular region is prepared and then standardized by subtracting the climatological mean and dividing by the
climatological standard deviation. Dry spells are defined as the periods during which standardized rainfall
anomaly is less than 1.0 for at least three consecutive days. Similarly, wet spells are defined as the periods
during which standardized rainfall anomaly is greater than +1.0 for at least three consecutive days. We find
that during the dry spells the impacts of deforestation over the WG on the rainfall over Tamil Nadu is typically
higher as compared to that during wet spells (Figures 2b and 2c). This makes the moisture contribution of
forests of WG to rainfall over Tamil Nadu critically important and needs to be maintained for agricultural
sustainability specifically over the Kharif season. During the dry spells, the decline in rainfall due to deforesta-
tion over WG reaches as high as 50% of the total (Figure 2e) and this is evident over the entire state. However,
during the wet spells, the contribution is mostly over the southern part of the state with a magnitude of
around 25–30% (Figure 2f) of the total. A putative mechanism behind such a variability in contribution
may be attributed to the high rainfall during the wet spells over WG which gets evapotranspirated during
the dry spells when there is low cloud cover and high radiation (Figure S3). A fraction of the moisture gets
transported by the prevailing south westerlies delivering additional moisture and rainfall over Tamil Nadu
during dry spells. We find low latent heat flux over the southern WG due to low ET during the four monsoon
months after considering deforestation (Figures 3a–3d). However, the northern (upper) WG shows low ET
only during the onset of monsoon in the sensitivity simulation without vegetation (Figures 3b–3d). The
vegetation of northern WG mostly consists of woody savannas, which have low leaf area index likely resulting
in low ET. The dominant vegetation of southern WG is the evergreen broadleaf forest with high leaf area index
that produce higher amount of moisture through ET. In the scenario of deforestation, the supply of moisture
from the WG decreases along with the decrease in vertically integrated moisture transport over the transition
zone of WG forest and Tamil Nadu plain (Figures 3e–3h) leading to a decreased precipitation over Tamil Nadu
throughout the monsoon season (Figures 3i–3l). Removing vegetation cover in this region reduces the
ET-driven generation of moisture and that leads to a significant loss of precipitation over Tamil Nadu.
We find an increase in precipitation over the southern part of WG (Figure S4b) when we eliminate the vege-
tation over the WG (statistically significant at 0.05 level). This can be explained with the Bowen Ratio. An
earlier study by Saad et al. (2010) over the Amazon forest suggests an increase in precipitation with patchy
deforestation, and this is due to the increase in local Bowen Ratio over deforested regions. Increased preci-
pitation was observed for deforested simulations near the upwind edges of deforestation patches. The
increase in precipitation after deforestation over the southern (lower) WG (Figure S4b), which is associated

PAUL ET AL. 4340

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

Figure 3. (a–l) The differences between the simulated meteorological variables as obtained from the sensitivity run (without considering vegetation) and control run
(with vegetation) over the Western Ghats during June, July, August, and September. Panels (a–d) are for latent heat flux; panels (e–h) are for vertically integrated
moisture flux (VIMT); panels (i–l) are for precipitation.

with an increased Bowen Ratio (Figure S4c), is consistent with that found over the Amazon. However, WG
being a rainfall surplus region, these changes in rainfall may not be impactful enough although upstream
effects of such a deforestation in terms of the moisture fluxes must be considered in detail with a fully
coupled model. To summarize, deforestation in WG leads to a decrease in rainfall over the Tamil Nadu and
Northern WG with a slight increase in Rainfall in Southern WG.
We further selected three years with extremely deficit summer monsoon rainfall over Tamil Nadu, viz., June to
September of 1993, 1999, and 2002. These years are selected based on the threshold of rainfall amount
(mean 1 standard deviation). We find that the deforestation over WG reduces 40–50% of the precipitation
over Tamil Nadu during all the three years (Figures 4c–4e). The major source of surface water in Tamil Nadu is
the river Cauvery, and this river basin extends over the states Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (Figures 4a and 4b).
We find that the vegetation over the WG region supplies the moisture to the southern part of
Peninsular India.
We have further computed the difference between precipitation and ET (neglecting other minor losses),
which is an indicator of water availability (Figures S5a–S5c) for the state of Tamil Nadu. The results for the
differences in water availability between simulations without vegetation and the control simulations are in
agreement with that for precipitation. During a dry spell, significant portion of the available water in Tamil
Nadu comes from the vegetation over the WG and this is consistent with our findings obtained with the simu-
lations for precipitation.
We further verified the same with back trajectories applied to the simulations. The model used for back
trajectory is the Dynamic Recycling model developed by Martinez and Dominguez (2014). Such an approach
should ideally be applied to the observed or reanalysis data; however, the reanalysis data used here are of too
coarse resolution to capture the thin belt of WG. Hence, we have used simulated data of fine resolution for
the same. We find that the forests of WG contribute as high as 3 mm/day of rainfall during August and
September over majority of locations of water scares Tamil Nadu and Cauvery basin (Figure S6). During
June and July, the contribution is found to be lower at around 1 mm/day. This fact together with the charac-
teristics of precipitation and ET for both Tamil Nadu and WG region (Table S1) implies that whenever oceanic

PAUL ET AL. 4341

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

Figure 4. Locations of (a) Tamil Nadu and (b) Cauvery river basin. (c–e) The differences between the simulated precipitations as obtained without and with vegeta-
tion over the Western Ghats for the years 1993, 1999, and 2002. These three years are rainfall deficit years, and this classification is performed based on the anomalies
of summer monsoon precipitation over the Peninsular India.

sources of moisture become restricted or limited, WG acts as a capacitor for moisture supply, and vegetation
from WG contributes toward precipitation for both the regions during summer monsoon months. For Tamil
Nadu, surface temperature increases by 0.25 °C, when the vegetation of WG region is removed (Table S1). This
probably indicates that a cooling is associated with increased precipitation resulting from moisture
generated by the forest of WG. These findings are consistent with each other and indicate that WG
vegetation plays a greater role on the general meteorology of the area.
The WG orography can also be expected to play a major role in the generation of precipitation (Boos & Kuang,
2010; Chakraborty et al., 2006; Gadgil & Joshi, 1983; Gunnell, 1997; Konwar et al., 2014; Manabe & Terpstra,
1974; Patwardhan & Asnani, 2000). We performed simulations to understand these direct orographic effects
and find that orography affects the precipitation not only over the peninsula but also over the Bay of
Bengal, which will have a significant feedback to the atmospheric processes (Supplementary Text and
Figures S7a–S7h). This can only be tested with a coupled atmosphere-ocean model and will be a potential
area of future research.

4. Conclusion
The recent increase in the rate of deforestation over the WG, one of the world’s hottest biodiversity hot spots,
is a major concern of the ecological community, primarily due to the loss of rare flora and fauna. However, the
contribution of this dense vegetation over WG to the water cycle has not been explored thus far to the best of
our knowledge. In the present study, we conclude based on regional model simulations that an important
and significant contribution from WG vegetation lies in the supply of moisture toward generating precipita-
tion over the water-deficit state of Tamil Nadu, Cauveri river basin, and over the WG regions of Peninsular
India. The vegetation of WG contributes 25% of the moisture to the spatially averaged southwest monsoon
precipitation over Tamil Nadu and exceeds 40% at several locations. The maximum contribution of moisture
to the monsoon precipitation reaches up to 50% during the dry spells within a season as well as during deficit
summer monsoon seasons. The back trajectory analysis of atmospheric moisture reveals that the vegetation
over WG contributes around 3 mm/day of rainfall during the months of August and September for majority of

PAUL ET AL. 4342

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

the areas of Tamil Nadu and Cauvery river basin. Such a huge contribution has significant importance for the
Kharif cropping activities, especially over Tamil Nadu. The major source of surface water, the Cauvery River, is
already failing to meet the needs of Tamil Nadu. The situation will further worsen if the high deforestation
rate continues across WG.

Acknowledgments References
The authors sincerely acknowledge the
financial support by the Ministry of Bathiany, S., Claussen, M., Brovkin, V., Raddatz, T., & Gayler, V. (2010). Combined biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of large-scale
Earth Science (MoES/PAMC/H&C/35/ forest cover changes in the MPI earth system model. Biogeosciences, 7(5), 1383–1399. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-7-1383-2010
2013-PC-II). The precipitation data over Boisier, J. P., de Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Pitman, A. J., Cruz, F. T., Delire, C., van den Hurk, B. J. J. M., et al. (2012). Attributing the impacts of land-
India have been collected from India cover changes in temperate regions on surface temperature and heat fluxes to specific causes: Results from the first LUCID set of simu-
Meteorological Department (http:// lations. Journal of Geophysical Research, 117, D12116. https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD017106
www.imd.gov.in/advertisements/ Bonan, G. B. (2008). Forests and climate change: Forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. Science, 320(5882), 1444–1449.
20170320_advt_34.pdf). The land cover https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1155121
data that provide the details of vegeta- Bonan, G. B., Levis, S., Kergoat, L., & Oleson, K. W. (2002). Landscapes as patches of plant functional types: An integrating concept for climate
tion over the WG are obtained from and ecosystem models. Global Biogeochem Cycles, 16(2), 1021. https://doi.org/10.1029/2000GB001360
Moderate Resolution Imaging Boos, W. R., & Kuang, Z. (2010). Dominant control of the South Asian monsoon by orographic insulation versus plateau heating. Nature,
Spectroradiometer (MODIS, https:// 463(7278), 218–222. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08707
modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/). The reana- Chakraborty, A., Nanjundiah, R. S., & Srinivasan, J. (2006). Theoretical aspects of the onset of Indian summer monsoon from perturbed
lysis data is obtained from European orography simulations in a GCM. Annales Geophysicae, 24(8), 2075–2089. https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-24-2075-2006
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Chattopadhyay, S. (1985). Deforestation in parts of Western Ghats region (Kerala), India. Journal of Environmental Management, 20(3), 219–230.
Forecasts (http://apps.ecmwf.int/data- da Rocha, H. R., Goulden, M. L., Miller, S. D., Menton, M. C., Pinto, L. D. V. O., de Freitas, H. C., & e Silva Figueira, A. M. (2004). Seasonality of water
sets/data/interim-full-daily/levtype=sfc/). and heat fluxes over a tropical forest in eastern Amazonia. Ecological Applications, 14(sp4), 22–32. https://doi.org/10.1890/02-6001
S. P. acknowledges Amey Pathak for the de Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Boisier, J. P., Pitman, A., Bonan, G. B., Brovkin, V., Cruz, F., et al. (2012). Determining robust impacts of land-use-
help in deriving shape files of maps. The induced land cover changes on surface climate over North America and Eurasia: Results from the first set of LUCID experiments. Journal of
authors acknowledge the Editor and Climate, 25(9), 3261–3281. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00338.1
the two anonymous reviewers for Devanand, A., Ghosh, S., Paul, S., Karmakar, S., & Niyogi, D. (2017). Multi-ensemble regional simulation of Indian monsoon during contrasting
reviewing the manuscript and providing rainfall years: Role of convective schemes and nested domain. Climate Dynamics, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3864-x
very useful suggestions. Devaraju, N., Bala, G., & Modak, A. (2015). Effects of large-scale deforestation on precipitation in the monsoon regions: Remote versus local
effects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(11), 3257–3262. https://doi.org/10.1073/
pnas.1423439112
Devaraju, N., Bala, G., & Nemani, R. (2015). Modelling the influence of land-use changes on biophysical and biochemical interactions at
regional and global scales. Plant, Cell & Environment, 38(9), 1931–1946. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.12488
Dudhia, J. (1989). Numerical study of convection observed during the winter monsoon experiment using a mesoscale two-dimensional
model. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 46(20), 3077–3107. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1989)046<3077:NSOCOD>2.0.CO;2
Gadgil, M. (1996). Documenting diversity: An experiment. Current Science, 70(1), 36–44.
Gadgil, S., & Joshi, N. V. (1983). Climatic clusters of the Indian region. Journal of Climatology, 3(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1002/
joc.3370030105
Giorgi, F., & Mearns, L. O. (1999). Introduction to special section: Regional climate modeling revisited. Journal of Geophysical Research,
104(D6), 6335–6352. https://doi.org/10.1029/98JD02072
Gunnell, Y. (1997). Relief and climate in South Asia: The influence of the Western Ghats on the current climate pattern of peninsular India.
International Journal of Climatology, 17(11), 1169–1182. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(199709)17:11<1169::AID-JOC189>3.0.
CO;2-W
Hariprasad, D., Srinivas, C. V., Rao, D. V. B., & Anjaneyulu, Y. (2011). Simulation of Indian monsoon extreme rainfall events during the decadal
period 2000–2009 using a high-resolution mesoscale model. Advances in Geosciences, A6, 31–48.
Hong, S. Y., Dudhia, J., & Chen, S. H. (2004). A revised approach to ice microphysical processes for the bulk parameterization of clouds and
precipitation. Monthly Weather Review, 132(1), 103–120. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(2004)132<0103:ARATIM>2.0.CO;2
Hong, S. Y., Noh, Y., & Dudhia, J. (2006). A new vertical diffusion package with explicit treatment of entrainment processes. Monthly Weather
Review, 134(9), 2318–2341. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR3199.1
Jiménez, P. A., Dudhia, J., González-Rouco, J. F., Navarro, J., Montávez, J. P., & García-Bustamante, E. (2011). A revised scheme for the WRF
surface layer formulation. Monthly Weather Review, 140(3), 898–918. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-11-00056.1
Kain, J. S. (2004). The Kain–Fritsch convective parameterization: An update. Journal of Applied Meteorology, 43(1), 170–181. https://doi.org/
10.1175/1520-0450(2004)043<0170:TKCPAU>2.0.CO;2
Konwar, M., Das, S. K., Deshpande, S. M., Chakravarty, K., & Goswami, B. N. (2014). Microphysics of clouds and rain over the Western Ghats.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 119, 6140–6159. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021606
Lawrence, D., & Vandecar, K. (2014). Effects of tropical deforestation on climate and agriculture. Nature Climate Change, 5(1), 27–36. https://
doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2430
Manabe, S., & Terpstra, T. (1974). The effects of mountains on the general circulation of the atmosphere as identified by numerical experi-
ments. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 31, 3–42. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1974)031<0003:TEOMOT>2.0.CO;2
Martinez, J. A., & Dominguez, F. (2014). Sources of atmospheric moisture for the La Plata River Basin. Journal of Climate, 27(17), 6737–6753.
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00022.1
Medvigy, D., Walko, R. L., Otte, M. J., & Avissar, R. (2013). Simulated changes in Northwest U.S. Climate in response to Amazon deforestation.
Journal of Climate, 26(22), 9115–9136. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00775.1
Miguez-Macho, G., Stenchikov, G. L., & Robock, A. (2004). Spectral nudging to eliminate the effects of domain position and geometry in
regional climate model simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D13104. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD004495
Mlawer, E. J., Taubman, S. J., Brown, P. D., Iacono, M. J., & Clough, S. A. (1997). Radiative transfer for inhomogeneous atmosphere: RRTM, a
validated correlated-k model for the long wave. Journal of Geophysical Research, 102(D14), 16,663–16,682. https://doi.org/10.1029/
97JD00237
Monin, A. S., & Obukhov, A. M. (1954). Basic laws of turbulent mixing in the surface layer of the atmosphere. Contributions of the Geophysical
Institute Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 24(151), 163–187.

PAUL ET AL. 4343

 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2018GL078198

Myers, N., Mittermeier, R. A., Mittermeier, C. G., Da Fonseca, G. A., & Kent, J. (2000). Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature,
403(6772), 853–858. https://doi.org/10.1038/35002501
Oleson, K. W., Lawrence, D. M., Bonan, G. B., Flanner, M. G., Kluzek, E., Lawrence, P. J., et al. (2010). Technical description of version 4.0 of the
Community Land Model (CLM), NCAR/TN-478+STR NCAR Technical Note. https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RR1W7M
Pai, D. S., Sridhar, L., Rajeevan, M., Sreejith, O. P., Satbhai, N. S., & Mukhopadhyay, B. (2014). Development of a new high spatial resolution
(0.25° × 0.25°) long period (1901–2010) daily gridded rainfall data set over India and its comparison with existing data sets over the region.
Mausam, 65(1), 1–18.
Pascal, J. P., Ramesh, B. R., & Franceschi, D. D. (2004). Wet evergreen forest types of the southern Western Ghats, India. Tropical Ecology, 45(2),
281–292.
Pathak, A., Ghosh, S., Martinez, J. A., Dominguez, F., & Kumar, P. (2017). Role of oceanic and land moisture sources and transport in the
seasonal and interannual variability of summer monsoon in India. Journal of Climate, 30(5), 1839–1859. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-
0156.1
Patwardhan, S. K., & Asnani, G. C. (2000). Meso-scale distribution of summer monsoon rainfall near the Western Ghats (India). International
Journal of Climatology, 20(5), 575–581. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(200004)20:5<575::AID-JOC509>3.0.CO;2-6
Paul, S., Ghosh, S., Oglesby, R., Pathak, A., Chandrasekharan, A., & Ramsankaran, R. (2016). Weakening of Indian summer monsoon rainfall due
to changes in land use land cover. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 32177. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep32177
Pielke, R. A., Marland, G., Betts, R. A., Chase, T. N., Eastman, J. L., Niles, J. O., et al. (2002). The influence of land-use change and landscape
dynamics on the climate: Relevance to climate-change policy beyond the radiative effect of greenhouse gases. Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 360(1797), 1705–1719. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2002.1027
Quesada, B., Devaraju, N., Noblet-Ducoudré, N., & Arneth, A. (2017). Reduction of monsoon rainfall in response to past and future land use
and land cover changes. Geophysical Research Letters, 44, 1041–1050. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070663
Rajeevan, M., Gadgil, S., & Bhate, J. (2010). Active and break spells of the indian summer monsoon. Journal of Earth System Science, 119(3),
229–247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-010-0019-4
Ramesh, B. R., Menon, S., & Bawa, K. S. (1997). A vegetation based approach to biodiversity gap analysis in the Agastyamalai Region, Western
Ghats, India. Ambio, 26(8), 529–536.
Reddy, C. S., Jha, C. S., & Dadhwal, V. K. (2016). Assessment and monitoring of long-term forest cover changes (1920-2013) in Western Ghats
biodiversity hotspot. Journal of Earth System Science, 125(1), 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-015-0645-y
Saad, S. I., Da Rocha, H. R., Silva Dias, M. A. F., & Rosolem, R. (2010). Can the deforestation breeze change the rainfall in Amazonia? A case study
for the BR-163 highway region. Earth Interactions, 14(18), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010EI351.1
Skamarock, W. C., Klemp, J. B., Dudhia, J., Gill, D. O., Barker, D. M., Wang, W., & Powers, J. G. (2008). A description of the Advanced Research
WRF version 3, NCAR Technical Note, NCAR/TN-475 + STR. https://doi.org/10.5065/D68S4MVH
Srinivas, C. V., Hariprasad, D., Bhaskar Rao, D. V., Anjaneyulu, Y., Baskaran, R., & Venkatraman, B. (2013). Simulation of the Indian summer
monsoon regional climate using advanced research WRF model. International Journal of Climatology, 33(5), 1195–1210. https://doi.org/
10.1002/joc.3505
Subin, Z. M., Riley, W. J., Jin, J., Christianson, D. S., Torn, M. S., & Kueppers, L. M. (2011). Ecosystem feedbacks to climate change in California:
development, testing, and analysis using a coupled regional atmosphere and land surface model (WRF3-CLM3.5). Earth Interactions,
15(15), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010EI331.1
Utkarsh, G., Joshi, N. V., & Gadgil, M. (1998). On the patterns of tree diversity in the Western Ghats of India. Current Science, 75(6), 594–603.
von Randow, C., Manzi, A. O., Kruijt, B., de Oliveira, P. J., Zanchi, F. B., Silva, R. L., et al. (2004). Comparative measurements and seasonal
variations in energy and carbon exchange over forest and pasture in South West Amazonia. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 78(1–3),
5–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-004-0041-z

PAUL ET AL. 4344