Delayed monsoons in India and poor rains in Australia also contributed to higher prices.
But even with better data, monsoons are ill-understood once they leave the sea or low-lying land.
For four years, 1999-2002, much of rural India suffered from failed monsoons, seriously denting spending power.
Someone for whom the lack of oxygen, the pummeling monsoons and the little leeches that appear would be fine?
Government subsidies, good monsoons, high land prices and a low reliance on credit have thus far sheltered these consumers.
And there are other water-related questions to be addressed, including possible changes to the monsoons and massive depletion of groundwater.
The pits get damp, especially during the monsoons, and after the daylight fades, weavers must rely on a single naked lightbulb.
They recall that 10 times in the last 50 years good monsoons have produced short-lived economic booms, and none has brought lasting benefits to them.
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Living here means not only surviving, but learning to appreciate the daily tumult, epic traffic and seasonal monsoons, while enjoying life in the most cosmopolitan city on the subcontinent.
The younger Mr. Zhu, whose Chinese given name means "cloud coming, " is also a weather expert, having written a doctoral thesis on Asia's summer monsoons at the University of Wisconsin.
Traditionally the Moken are huntergatherers, spending much of the year fishing from covered boats known as kabangs, only returning to land to collect fresh water or seek refuge from seasonal monsoons.
Conversation shapes us more than mountains and monsoons can.
And while such an effort would cool the globe, it might do so in ways that disrupt the behavior of the Asian and African monsoons, which provide the water that billions of people need to drink and to grow their food.
For example, significant cooling and strong dynamical effects after the Laki event and other high-latitude eruptions are believed to have caused decreased flow of the Nile River in Egypt and weakened African and Asian monsoons based on climate model simulations, with potentially very significant impacts on food and water supplies.
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