Abstract
Using observation data and outputs from the “twentieth-century climate in coupled models” (20c3m) control runs of coupled general circulation models submitted to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 3 (CMIP3), the ability of CMIP3 models to simulate the Indian Ocean subtropical dipole (IOSD) and its influence on the rainfall anomaly over the southern African region is investigated. Many models simulate the IOSD, but the location and shape of the sea surface temperature anomaly vary among models. This model bias is closely linked to the bias in simulating the anomalous strengthening and southward shift of the subtropical high. Almost all models fail to simulate the rainfall anomaly associated with the IOSD owing to the inaccurate simulation of the location of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure anomalies.
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the modeling groups for making their simulations available for analysis, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) for collecting and archiving the CMIP3 model output, the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for organizing the model data analysis activity. The WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset is supported by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. The present research is supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), and Japan Society for Promotion of Science through Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 20340125. The first author is financially supported by the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from the Japan Science Society.
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Kataoka, T., Tozuka, T., Masumoto, Y. et al. The Indian Ocean subtropical dipole mode simulated in the CMIP3 models. Clim Dyn 39, 1385–1399 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1271-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1271-2