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Projected changes in the mean and intra-seasonal variability of the Indian summer monsoon in the RegCM CORDEX-CORE simulations under higher warming conditions

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Abstract

The present study employed the latest high-resolution regional climate model (RegCM4), driven by MPI-ESM-MR boundary conditions from the CORDEX-CORE South Asia framework to investigate the possible projected changes in the mean and intra-seasonal variability of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) precipitation and their associated dynamics during near future (NF; 2041–2060) and far future (FF; 2080–2099) with respect to the historical period (1995–2014) under RCP8.5 scenario. Extensive evaluation analysis indicates that the RegCM4 is fairly able to simulate the spatial–temporal distribution of the observed mean and extreme precipitation, low-level jet, and intra-seasonal variability i.e. active and break composite patterns of the precipitation anomalies over India during the historical period. A substantial decline in the projected precipitation during ISM is estimated over central and northwest India in NF (about 10–30%) as well as in FF (upto 50%), which may be attributed to the weakening and northward shift of low-level winds. The occurrences as well as the intensity of the extreme precipitation events are expected to increase over India in the future. The precipitation during the projected active spells will escalate over the monsoon core region. This is supported by the decrease in sea level pressure over land, which favors the winds to transport more moisture from the adjoining seas for the formation of convective clouds, which is partly indicated through the decline in net surface longwave radiation. On the other hand, the precipitation intensity during the projected break spells is expected to further decrease in the future.

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Data availability

The datasets used in this work are freely available at WCRP CORDEX: https://esgf-data.dkrz.de/search/cordex-dkrz/

Code availability

The analysis code is available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the WCRP initiated CORDEX project which provided the data used in this study. All the variables analyzed are archived in the ESGF website https://esgf-data.dkrz.de/search/cordex-dkrz.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS-IPSL Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD), École Polytechnique, 91128, Palaiseau, France

    Namendra Kumar Shahi

  2. Earth System Physics Section, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

    Sushant Das

  3. Department of Geophysics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    Soumik Ghosh

  4. Faculty of Science, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, India

    Pyarimohan Maharana

  5. K. Banerjee Centre of Atmospheric and Ocean Studies, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

    Namendra Kumar Shahi & Shailendra Rai

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Shahi, N.K., Das, S., Ghosh, S. et al. Projected changes in the mean and intra-seasonal variability of the Indian summer monsoon in the RegCM CORDEX-CORE simulations under higher warming conditions. Clim Dyn 57, 1489–1506 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05771-3

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