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Future changes in Indian summer monsoon characteristics under 1.5 and 2 °C specific warming levels

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Abstract

The rainfall during Indian summer monsoon (ISM) is very important for the population living in the Indian sub-continent. The recent Paris climate agreement determined to keep the global mean temperature rise well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to limit it within 1.5 °C. This global temperature rise would influence the ISM mechanism over the Indian sub-continent. This study examines the possible changes in the ISM characteristics at 1.5 and 2 °C specific warming levels (SWLs) with respect to the historical period. This analysis uses a set of 12 regional climate simulations under Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiments-South Asia (CORDEX-SA). The land as well as the oceans shows a warming signature due to the effect of anthropogenic forcings with much higher warming over land. The increase of global temperature to 1.5 °C (2 °C) SWL leads to an earlier onset of ISM over India by 7 (11) days in the model ensemble. The increasing land-sea temperature contrast gradually increases the strength of the Findlater jet (by 0.5–0.9 m/s), which transports more moisture towards land and causes higher rainfall (increase by 2–10%) over India. The study reveals that under a higher SWL of 2 °C the mean rainfall is augmented as compared to that under 1.5 °C. However, there exists uncertainty in the findings due to inter-model differences especially for the duration of ISM activity and the spatial distribution of rainfall at different SWLs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Regional Climate, and the Working Group on Coupled Modelling and Center for Climate Change Research (CCCR), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology for provision of CORDEX South Asia data. PM acknowledges the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India for providing timely stipend to the Research Associate (CSIR sanction letter no. – 09/263(1104)/2019/EMR-I). The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments, which helped to shape this manuscript in a much better way and more presentable.

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  1. School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110067, India

    P. Maharana, A. P. Dimri & A. Choudhary

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  1. P. Maharana
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Maharana, P., Dimri, A.P. & Choudhary, A. Future changes in Indian summer monsoon characteristics under 1.5 and 2 °C specific warming levels. Clim Dyn 54, 507–523 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-05012-8

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