Indian summer monsoon variability forecasts in the North American multimodel ensemble

Bohar Singh; Ben Cash; James L Kinter Iii

doi:10.1007/s00382-018-4203-6

Indian summer monsoon variability forecasts in the North American multimodel ensemble

Clim Dyn. 2019;53(12):7321-7334. doi: 10.1007/s00382-018-4203-6. Epub 2018 Apr 12.

Authors

Bohar Singh¹, Ben Cash², James L Kinter Iii²

Affiliations

¹ 1George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22031 USA.
² 2Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22031 USA.

Abstract

The representation of the seasonal mean and interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) in nine global ocean-atmosphere coupled models that participated in the North American Multimodal Ensemble (NMME) phase 1 (NMME:1), and in nine global ocean-atmosphere coupled models participating in the NMME phase 2 (NMME:2) from 1982-2009, is evaluated over the Indo-Pacific domain with May initial conditions. The multi-model ensemble (MME) represents the Indian monsoon rainfall with modest skill and systematic biases. There is no significant improvement in the seasonal forecast skill or interannual variability of ISMR in NMME:2 as compared to NMME:1. The NMME skillfully predicts seasonal mean sea surface temperature (SST) and some of the teleconnections with seasonal mean rainfall. However, the SST-rainfall teleconnections are stronger in the NMME than observed. The NMME is not able to capture the extremes of seasonal mean rainfall and the simulated Indian Ocean-monsoon teleconnections are opposite to what are observed.

Keywords: Indian Monsoon; Interannual variability; Teleconnections.