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Boreal summer sub-seasonal variability of the South Asian monsoon in the Met Office GloSea5 initialized coupled model

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Abstract

Boreal summer sub-seasonal variability in the Asian monsoon, otherwise known as the monsoon intra-seasonal oscillation (MISO), is one of the dominant modes of intraseasonal variability in the tropics, with large impacts on total monsoon rainfall and India’s agricultural production. However, our understanding of the mechanisms involved in MISO is incomplete and its simulation in various numerical models is often flawed. In this study, we focus on the objective evaluation of the fidelity of MISO simulation in the Met Office Global Seasonal forecast system version 5 (GloSea5), an initialized coupled model. We analyze a series of nine-member hindcasts from GloSea5 over 1996–2009 during the peak monsoon period (July–August) over the South-Asian monsoon domain focusing on aspects of the time-mean background state and air–sea interaction processes pertinent to MISO. Dominant modes during this period are evident in power spectrum analysis, but propagation and evolution characteristics of the MISO are not realistic. We find that simulated air–sea interactions in the central Indian Ocean are not supportive of MISO initiation in that region, likely a result of the low surface wind variance there. As a consequence, the expected near-quadrature phase relationship between SST and convection is not represented properly over the central equatorial Indian Ocean, and northward propagation from the equator is poorly simulated. This may reinforce the equatorial rainfall mean state bias in GloSea5.

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Acknowledgements

This work is carried out to meet the goals of the ‘NCMRWF/MoES NMM project for seamless model development for monsoon’. AGT and SJJ gratefully acknowledge the financial support given by the Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India (Grant No. MM/SERP/Univ_Reading_UK/2013/INT-13, manuscript number MM/TURNER/RP/02) to conduct this research under Monsoon Mission. ERA-Interim data used in this study have been obtained from the ECMWF data server. Thanks to IFREMER for QuikSCAT winds and the WHOI OAFlux project for flux products.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NCMRWF, MoES, Noida, India

    A. Jayakumar, E. N. Rajagopal, Saji Mohandas & A. K. Mitra

  2. Department of Meteorology, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    A. G. Turner & S. J. Johnson

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  1. A. Jayakumar
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Correspondence to A. Jayakumar.

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Jayakumar, A., Turner, A.G., Johnson, S.J. et al. Boreal summer sub-seasonal variability of the South Asian monsoon in the Met Office GloSea5 initialized coupled model. Clim Dyn 49, 2035–2059 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3423-x

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