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Title: The Response of the South Asian Summer Monsoon to Temporal and Spatial Variations in Absorbing Aerosol Radiative Forcing

Journal Article · · Journal of Climate
 [1];  [2]
  1. Singapore–MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre (Singapore)
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
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Previous studies on the response of the South Asian summer monsoon to the direct radiative forcing caused by anthropogenic absorbing aerosols have emphasized the role of premonsoonal aerosol forcing. This study examines the roles of aerosol forcing in both pre- and postonset periods using the Community Earth System Model, version 1.0.4, with the Community Atmosphere Model, version 4. Simulations were perturbed by model-derived radiative forcing applied (i) only during the premonsoonal period (May–June), (ii) only during the monsoonal period (July–August), and (iii) throughout both periods. Soil water storage is found to retain the effects of premonsoonal forcing into succeeding months, resulting in monsoonal central India drying. Monsoonal forcing is found to dry all of India through local responses. Large-scale responses, such as the meridional rotation of monsoon jet during June and its weakening during July–August, are significant only when aerosol forcing is present throughout both premonsoonal and monsoonal periods. Monsoon responses to premonsoonal forcing by the model-derived “realistic” distribution versus a uniform wide-area distribution were compared. Both simulations exhibit central India drying in June. June precipitation over northwestern India (increase) and southwestern India (decrease) is significantly changed under realistic but not under wide-area forcing. Finally, the same aerosol forcing is found to dry or moisten the July–August period following the warm or cool phase of the simulations’ ENSO-like internal variability. The selection of years used for analysis may affect the precipitation response obtained, but the overall effect seems to be an increase in rainfall variance over northwest and southwest India.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-94ER61937
OSTI ID:
1557422
Journal Information:
Journal of Climate, Vol. 28, Issue 17; ISSN 0894-8755
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (2)

Radiative effects of interannually varying vs. interannually invariant aerosol emissions from fires journal January 2016
A revival of Indian summer monsoon rainfall since 2002 journal July 2017

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