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A comparative study of the Indian summer monsoon hydroclimate and its variations in three reanalyses

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Abstract

This study examines the Indian summer monsoon hydroclimate in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)-Department of Energy (DOE) Reanalysis (R2), the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). The three reanalyses show significant differences in the climatology of evaporation, low-level winds, and precipitable water fields over India. For example, the continental evaporation is significantly less in CFSR compared to R2 and MERRA. Likewise the mean boreal summer 925 hPa westerly winds in the northern Indian Ocean are stronger in R2. Similarly the continental precipitable water in R2 is much less while it is higher and comparable in MERRA and CFSR. Despite these climatological differences between the reanalyses, the climatological evaporative sources for rain events over central India show some qualitative similarities. Major differences however appear when interannual variations of the Indian summer monsoon are analyzed. The anomalous oceanic sources of moisture from the adjacent Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea play a significant role in determining the wet or dry year of the Indian monsoon in CFSR. However in R2 the local evaporative sources from the continental region play a more significant role. We also find that the interannual variability of the evaporative sources in the break spells of the intraseasonal variations of the Indian monsoon is stronger than in the wet spells. We therefore claim that instead of rainfall, evaporative sources may be a more appropriate metric to observe the relationship between the seasonal monsoon strength and intraseasonal activity. These findings are consistent across the reanalyses and provide a basis to improve the predictability of intraseasonal variability of the Indian monsoon. This study also has a bearing on improving weather prediction for tropical cyclones in that we suggest targeting enhanced observations in the Bay of Bengal (where it is drawing the most moisture from) for improved analysis during active spells of the intraseasonal variability of the Indian monsoon. The analysis suggests that the land–atmosphere interactions contribute significant uncertainty to the Indian monsoon in the reanalyses, which is consistent with the fact that most of the global reanalyses do not assimilate any land-surface data because the data are not available. Therefore, the land–atmosphere interaction in the reanalyses is highly dependent on the land-surface model and it’s coupling with the atmospheric model.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the expert guidance of Kathy Fearon of COAPS for her editorial corrections on an earlier version of the manuscript. We acknowledge the resources of the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory of NCAR to obtain some of the observational datasets used for verification in this study. We also thank Dr. Paul Dirmeyer of Center for Ocean, Land and Atmosphere Studies (COLA) for sharing the Fortran code of the back trajectory program. The useful review comments and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of the manuscript is also acknowledged. This work is supported by NOAA grant NA070AR4310221 and the USDA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra

  2. Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra & S. DiNapoli

  3. Science Systems and Application, Inc., 10210 Greenbelt Road, Ste. 600, Lanham, MD, 20706, USA

    P. Pantina

  4. Cloud and Radiation Laboratory, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    P. Pantina

  5. School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    S. C. Chan

  6. Met Office Hadley Center, Exeter, UK

    S. C. Chan

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  1. Vasubandhu Misra
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  2. P. Pantina
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  4. S. DiNapoli
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Correspondence to Vasubandhu Misra.

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This paper is a contribution to the special issue on Global Monsoon Climate, a product of the Global Monsoon Working Group of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, coordinated by Pinxian Wang, Bin Wang, and Thorsten Kiefer.

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Misra, V., Pantina, P., C. Chan, S. et al. A comparative study of the Indian summer monsoon hydroclimate and its variations in three reanalyses. Clim Dyn 39, 1149–1168 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1319-y

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