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South Asian Summer Monsoon Variability in a Changing Climate

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The Monsoons and Climate Change

Part of the book series: Springer Climate ((SPCL))

Abstract

This chapter provides a succinct review of the current understanding of the South Asian summer monsoon and the ability of present-day climate models to represent its variability in a changing climate. Beginning with a processes-based review of the large- and regional-scale aspects of the monsoon precipitation climatology, the systematic model errors in precipitation and monsoonal diabatic heating are also highlighted. Certain necessary conditions for the representation of synoptic systems, boreal summer intra-seasonal variability, and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-monsoon teleconnection in climate models are presented, followed by discussion of the improved (or not improved) performance of climate models in simulating natural modes of variability. Lastly, we evaluate the ability of models to simulate the observed long-term declining trend in the seasonal mean monsoon rainfall, including possible mechanisms for this trend. Despite dedicated efforts, there is a lack of substantial improvement in monsoon modeling, which in our view is due to the lack of high-quality observations (atmosphere and ocean) over the monsoon-influenced regions to constrain the model physics. Our conclusion is that without such an observational effort, improving the physical processes in numerical models will be severely limited.

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Acknowledgments

H. Annamalai’s research was supported by the Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DEFG02-07ER6445. K.R. Sperber’s was supported by the Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, through a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making their model output available. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provided coordinating support and led the development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

    H. Annamalai

  2. Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    K. R. Sperber

Authors
  1. H. Annamalai
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  2. K. R. Sperber
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Correspondence to H. Annamalai .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Geography and Earth Res. Inst., University of California, SANTA BARBARA, California, USA

    Leila Maria Véspoli de Carvalho

  2. Earth Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Charles Jones

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Annamalai, H., Sperber, K.R. (2016). South Asian Summer Monsoon Variability in a Changing Climate. In: de Carvalho, L., Jones, C. (eds) The Monsoons and Climate Change. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21650-8_3

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