Monsoons are the seasonal rainbearing winds best known for their sometimes devastating effect on India and southern Asia. Our ability to forecast their timing and severity depends on understanding the factors that control them. Several mechanisms werefound to be responsible. Changes in mountain topography have altered air-mass flow patterns. Variations of the solar heating and continental ice sheets influenced the heat budget in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, changes in snow cover on the continents, sea surface temperatures of the North Atlantic, and El-Nino anomalies in the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific all contribute to monsoon behavior (see figure).
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