Theoretical and Applied Climatology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2334-z ORIGINAL PAPER Monsoon climate response in Indian teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) along a transect from coast to inland Saikat Sengupta 1 · Hemant Borgaonkar 1 · Reji Mariya Joy 2 · Somaru Ram 1 Received: 5 September 2017 / Accepted: 14 November 2017 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract Indian monsoon (June–September) and post monsoon (October–November) rainfall show a distinct trend from coast to inland primarily due to moisture availability. However, the response of this synoptic-scale variation of rainfall amount to annual ring growth of Indian teak has not been studied systematically yet. The study is important as (1) ring width of Indian teak is considered as a reliable proxy for studying monsoon climate variability in multi-centennial time scale and (2) observed meteorological data show systematic changes in rainfall variation from coast to inland since last three decades. Towards this, we present here tree-ring width data from two locations—Thatibanda (1747–1979) and Nagzira (1728–2000) and use similar published data from two other locations—Allapalli (1866–1897) and Edugurapalli (1827–2000). The locations fall along a southeast northwest transect from south east Indian coast to inland. Monthly mean data from nearest observatories show an increasing trend in monsoon rainfall and a pronounced decreasing trend in post monsoon rainfall towards inland. Ring width data show moderately positive response to monsoon rainfall and negative response to summer (March–May) temperature for all stations suggesting moisture deficit in hot summer and intense precipitation in monsoon affect ring growth pattern in different ways. Ring width indices also exhibit significantly positive response with post monsoon rainfall at coastal location. The response gradually reduces towards inland. This preliminary study, thus, suggests that Indian teak has a potential to capture signals of the synoptic variation of post monsoon rainfall from coast to inland. Keywords Teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) · Tree ring · Central and South India 1 Introduction Monsoon precipitation (June–September) plays a pivotal role in the agricultural productivity of the South East Asia (Mall et al. 2006). Studies have shown significant changes in the frequency and amount of monsoonal precipitation since last three decades as consequences of global warming and other factors (Zhai et al. 2005; Goswami et al. 2006). This justifies projection of future climate through various models (Webster et al. 1998; Wang et al. 2005). Sensitivity of these models largely depends on the precise estimation of some climatic parameters (temperature, rainfall, etc.)  Saikat Sengupta saikat@tropmet.res.in 1 Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune 411008, India 2 Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur 680656, India in the past especially beyond the period of instrumental observations (Hegerl et al. 2006; Braconnot et al. 2012). Regional dendroclimatic research since last few decades has exhibited that quantitative reconstruction of aforementioned parameters is possible for more than three centuries by studying tree rings with annual resolution (Moberg et al. 2005; Steinman et al. 2012). Some earlier studies have documented that teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) in India (Shah et al. 2007; Ram et al. 2008; Borgaonkar et al. 2010) also preserves signal of past rainfall similar to Himalayan conifers (Borgaonkar et al. 1996; Pant et al. 2000; Yadav and Singh 2002). The longest living (523 years) teak chronology (Kerala, India), reported so far, displays a significantly positive response of Indian monsoon rainfall and related global parameters like Southern Oscillation Index to tree-ring width index (RWI) (Borgaonkar et al. 2010). These observations are consistent with the other tropical teak studies discussing shorter chronologies (Buckley et al. 2007; D’Arrigo et al. 2011), which suggest that tropical teak has potential for