India’s western wall wrings monsoon rain from the sea
The Western Ghats, or Sahyadri, run about 1,600 kilometres along India’s Arabian Sea coast, covering some 160,000 square kilometres. Averaging around 1,200 metres high, they force moist summer winds upward and feed rivers that drain nearly forty percent of the country.
Born as the faulted, eroded rim of the Deccan Plateau when Gondwana broke and India peeled from Africa in the late Jurassic to early Cretaceous, the chain stretches from south of the Tapti near the Satpura Range to Marunthuvazh Malai in Kanyakumari. Gaps interrupt the wall—the Goa Gap opened 65 to 80 million years ago—while northern heights of 900–1,500 metres dip below 900 metres mid-range before rising again in the south.
Godavari, Kaveri, and Krishna are among the great east-flowing systems born here; most water heads toward the Bay of Bengal even though the mountains face west. In April–May heat over land pulls Arabian Sea air inland; the Ghats block and lift that moisture, shaping India’s monsoon timing and intensity. Mean temperatures stay warm and humid, roughly 20°C in the south to 24°C farther north.
As a biodiversity hotspot the range holds nearly thirty percent of India’s flora and fauna species, many endemic, plus at least 325 globally threatened species. The word ghat marks a stepped mountain edge; Western simply places that staircase relative to the peninsula. Geology, rain shadow, and endemism are one story told at three scales.
UNESCO later recognised stretches of the chain as World Heritage for that living abundance. Farmers and cities downstream still depend on the same orographic lift that first made the ridge famous to climatologists. UNESCO later celebrated stretches of the chain for living abundance that monsoon forests still concentrate. Cities and farms east of the ridge drink rivers the Arabian Sea winds first wrung from the air.
Source: Western Ghats
