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Asian monsoon simulations by Community Climate Models CAM4 and CCSM4

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Abstract

This study examines the ability of Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) and Community Climate System Model (CCSM) to simulate the Asian summer monsoon, focusing particularly on inter-model comparison and the role of air–sea interaction. Two different versions of CAM, namely CAM4 and CAM5, are used for uncoupled simulations whereas coupled simulations are performed with CCSM4 model. Ensemble uncoupled simulations are performed for a 30 year time period whereas the coupled model is integrated for 100 years. Emphasis is placed on the simulation of monsoon precipitation by analyzing the interannual variability of the atmosphere-only simulations and sea surface temperature bias in the coupled simulation. It is found that both CAM4 and CAM5 adequately simulated monsoon precipitation, and considerably reduced systematic errors that occurred in predecessors of CAM4, although both tend to overestimate monsoon precipitation when compared with observations. The onset and cessation of the precipitation annual cycle, along with the mean climatology, are reasonably well captured in their simulations. In terms of monsoon interannual variability and its teleconnection with SST over the Pacific and Indian Ocean, both CAM4 and CAM5 showed modest skill. CAM5, with revised model physics, has significantly improved the simulation of the monsoon mean climatology and showed better skill than CAM4. Using idealized experiments with CAM5, it is seen that the adoption of new boundary layer schemes in CAM5 contributes the most to reduce the monsoon overestimation bias in its simulation. In the CCSM4 coupled simulations, several aspects of the monsoon simulation are improved by the inclusion of air–sea interaction, including the cross-variability of simulated precipitation and SST. A significant improvement is seen in the spatial distribution of monsoon mean climatology where a too-heavy monsoon precipitation, which occurred in CAM4, is rectified. A detailed investigation of this significant precipitation reduction showed that the large systematic cold SST errors in the Northern Indian Ocean reduces monsoon precipitation and delays onset by weakening local evaporation. Sensitivity experiments with CAM4 further confirmed these results by simulating a weak monsoon in the presence of cold biases in the Northern Indian Ocean. It is found that although the air–sea coupling rectifies the major weaknesses of the monsoon simulation, the SST bias in coupled simulations induces significant differences in monsoon precipitation. The overall simulation characteristics demonstrate that although the new model versions CAM4, CAM5 and CCSM4, are significantly improved, they still have major weaknesses in simulating Asian monsoon precipitation.

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Notes

  1. CAM5 is run for different set of schemes. Standard run (control) of CAM5 has 30 vertical levels with all the default setting. The remaining set of CAM5 runs will be denoted with their particular name throughout the text.

  2. Subject to the computational conditions, the spin-up run was carried out 70 years, which basically allows atmospheric states to reach equilibrium.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) under research grant GR-7027. The authors are thankful to NCAR for providing models and their input data sets as well as providing assistance during simulations. We are also grateful for the comments provided by anonymous reviewers, which helped us improve and clarify the paper.

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  1. Environmental Science and Engineering, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University way, Prince George, BC, V2N 4Z9, Canada

    Siraj ul Islam, Youmin Tang & Peter L. Jackson

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  1. Siraj ul Islam
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Correspondence to Youmin Tang.

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Islam, S.u., Tang, Y. & Jackson, P.L. Asian monsoon simulations by Community Climate Models CAM4 and CCSM4. Clim Dyn 41, 2617–2642 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1752-6

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