Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss the results of downscaling the climate over the Indian sub-continent using regional climate models (RCMs) following the coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment (CORDEX) framework. The climate change projections of four atmosphere-ocean coupled-global climate models (AOGCMs) have been downscaled for the period 1950–2100. The results of the downscaled RCMs are compared to those of the driving AOGCMs for the present climate in the period 1976–2005, to investigate whether RCMs are able to show added value, at regional scale relative to the performances of their driving AOGCMs. It is found that the spatial patterns of surface air temperature and seasonal precipitation are strongly affected by the choice of the RCM and driving AOGCMs. The RCMs are, however, able to improve the representation of the annual cycle of temperature in particular over the central India. The CORDEX South Asia RCMs indicate significant increases in temperatures over India in the mid-term (2031–2060) future climate change projections with the RCP4.5 scenario. However, the magnitude and sign of the summer monsoon season precipitation change over India is uncertain.
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Acknowledgments
The World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Regional Climate, and the Working Group on Coupled Modelling, former coordinating body of CORDEX and responsible panel for CMIP5 are gratefully acknowledged. The climate modelling groups (listed in Table 1 of this chapter) are sincerely thanked for producing and making available their model output. The Earth System Grid Federation infrastructure (ESGF; http://esgf.llnl.gov/index.html) is also acknowledged. We are thankful to the IITM Prithvi and Aaditya High Power Computing (HPC) support for providing the computer resources for in-house model runs. The Climate Data Operators software (CDO; https://code.zmaw.de/projects/cdo/) and the Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS; http://iges.org/grads/) were extensively used throughout this analysis. We thank Sandeep Ingle for managing CCCR climate data portal and for technical support. The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) through the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) consortia of the Collaborative Adaptation Research initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) financially supported M. V. S. Ramarao for carrying out this scientific research.
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Sanjay, J., Ramarao, M.V.S., Mujumdar, M., Krishnan, R. (2017). Regional Climate Change Scenarios. In: Rajeevan, M., Nayak, S. (eds) Observed Climate Variability and Change over the Indian Region. Springer Geology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2531-0_16
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