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Simulation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall, interannual variability and teleconnections: evaluation of CMIP6 models

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Abstract

We analyse the performance of global climate models of 6\(\mathrm{th}\) generation of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) in simulating climatological summer monsoon rainfall over India, interannual variability (IAV) of all-India summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) and its teleconnections with rainfall variability over equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans. The multimodel ensemble mean (MME) of 61 CMIP6 models shows the best skill in simulating mean monsoon rainfall over India compared to the MMEs of 6\(\mathrm{th}\) generation atmosphere-only models (AMIP6) and the previous generations of Atmospheric and Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (AMIPs and CMIPs). Systematic improvement and reduction in bias are evident from lower to higher AMIPs/CMIPs. Still, there exists dry bias over a narrow region of the monsoon zone of central India besides wet and cold bias over the surrounding oceans. The persistence of errors in atmosphere-only models hints that the source of errors could be with atmosphere models. Fifteen CMIP6 models selected through objective criteria, perform the best in simulating mean monsoon, IAV of ISMR, the strong inverse relationship between ISMR and Boreal summer El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the inverse relationship between all-India rainfall and north–west tropical Pacific rainfall in June. Several models reproduce the dipole structure of Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO) with the centres over western and eastern equatorial Indian Ocean. But, ISMR-EQUINOO relationship in many of them is opposite to the observed. Our analysis implies the need for capturing ISMR-EQUINOO link to improve the simulation of IAV of ISMR which is crucial for reliable monsoon prediction and projection.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by MoES National Monsoon Mission Phase II project GAP-1013. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme which is responsible for CMIP6, and all the climate modelling groups (listed in Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for making available their model datasets (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Multi-Scale Modelling Programme, CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute, Bangalore, 560037, India

    Kavirajan Rajendran, Sajani Surendran & Anjali Sathyanath

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, 201002, India

    Kavirajan Rajendran, Sajani Surendran & Stella Jes Varghese

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  1. Kavirajan Rajendran
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Rajendran, K., Surendran, S., Varghese, S.J. et al. Simulation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall, interannual variability and teleconnections: evaluation of CMIP6 models. Clim Dyn 58, 2693–2723 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-06027-w

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