With more than 50 years of rainfall data to draw from, scientists are exploring India’s monsoon phenomenon. Apparently rainfall in monsoon season is decreasing in some areas, yet increasing in others. Records offer us the hope of finding causes and solutions to this issue, which has potential impacts for the whole world.

Scientists at Purdue University released a study which finds that specific environmental practices in rural and urban areas are causing the rainfall problems. In rural areas of India’s northwestern states, intensive irrigation before the monsoons begin makes the soil much wetter than it would naturally be if left alone. The moisture from the irrigated fields evaporates and cools the air, dissolving monsoon rain clouds. These dry, irrigated areas are the ones experiencing drops in monsoon rainfall.

As demand for food crops increases with increased urbanization and population, it follows that irrigation and agricultural intensity will increase as well. Already, growing seasons begin earlier, one of the reasons that irrigation is now affecting monsoons through high levels of soil moisture.

Urban areas where rainfall is increasing, dropping up to 37 inches in a day, are also experiencing rapid growth. The country’s middle class is growing, its cities are taking in more cars, more people, more industry, every year. The spreading urbanization increases the amount of particulates and pollution being released into the air, as well as creating the heat island effect. Cities’ condensed populations, building, and streets tend to be warmer than the natural environment they replaced. Heavier clouds and stronger rainfall could be caused by either increased air particulates or increased heat, the Purdue report suggests.

In summary, as this report indicates, the natural world is refusing to cooperate with humans’ land-use planning. We can dig minerals from the Earth, redirect rivers, pump water out of underground aquifers, flatten hills and build lakes, alter the genes of plants and extinguish species from existence, but it seems we have no control over the clouds, the rain, the air.