Seasonal prediction of the Indian monsoon

Gadgil, Sulochana and Srinivasan, J (2011) Seasonal prediction of the Indian monsoon. In: Current Science (Bangalore), 100 (3). pp. 343-353.

Preview

PDF Seasonal.pdf - Published Version Download (878kB)

Abstract

Under the project `Seasonal Prediction of the Indian Monsoon' (SPIM), the prediction of Indian summer monsoon rainfall by five atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) during 1985-2004 was assessed. The project was a collaborative effort of the coordinators and scientists from the different modelling groups across the country. All the runs were made at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) at Bangalore on the PARAM Padma supercomputing system. Two sets of simulations were made for this purpose. In the first set, the AGCMs were forced by the observed sea surface temperature (SST) for May-September during 1985-2004. In the second set, runs were made for 1987, 1988, 1994, 1997 and 2002 forced by SST which was obtained by assuming that the April anomalies persist during May-September. The results of the first set of runs show, as expected from earlier studies, that none of the models were able to simulate the correct sign of the anomaly of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall for all the years. However, among the five models, one simulated the correct sign in the largest number of years and the second model showed maximum skill in the simulation of the extremes (i.e. droughts or excess rainfall years). The first set of runs showed some common bias which could arise either from an excessive sensitivity of the models to El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or an inability of the models to simulate the link of the Indian monsoon rainfall to Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO), or both. Analysis of the second set of runs showed that with a weaker ENSO forcing, some models could simulate the link with EQUINOO, suggesting that the errors in the monsoon simulations with observed SST by these models could be attributed to unrealistically high sensitivity to ENSO.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science (Bangalore)
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Sciences
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords:	Atmospheric models;Indian summer monsoon;seasonal prediction; simulation
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Divecha Centre for Climate Change Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited:	08 Apr 2011 06:45
Last Modified:	08 Apr 2011 06:45
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/36042

Actions (login required)

View Item