Evaluation of CMIP6 models for simulations of surplus/deficit summer monsoon conditions over India.

This study uses the 30 General Circulation Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase-6 (CMIP6) to examine the simulations of the surplus/deficit Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) and its associated air-sea interactions on intraseasonal to interannual timescales. The majority of the CMIP6 models simulate the seasonal mean state of ISMR over the Indian mainland with systematic biases. Best performing models (BPM; AWI-ESM-1-1-LR, BCC-CSM2-MR, BCC-ESM1, CNRM-CM6-1, CNRM-ESM2-1, GFDL-CM4, INM-CM5-0, MIROC-ES2L, MIROC6, TaiESM1) well simulated the seasonal mean precipitation with Taylor skill score > 0.75 and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) is < 0.7. However, the models are failed to simulate precipitation over the orographic regions (Western Ghats). Improving the simulations of low-level winds and sea surface temperature (SST) with high spatial resolutions would provide better precipitation simulations. B-MME (multimodel ensemble mean of BPM) can capture the negative IOD-like (Indian Ocean Dipole) pattern during deficit monsoon years and fail to capture the positive IOD-like pattern during surplus monsoon years. Models overestimate the moisture transport from the West Indian Ocean to the sub-continent of India during deficit monsoons, which plays a crucial role in modulating the precipitation and its associated intraseasonal variability. The present analysis identified that during deficit monsoon years, the faster moving 20–100 days oscillations are evident; however, these oscillations are sluggish during surplus monsoon years, which affects the duration of convection activity and causes dry conditions over the regions. During surplus monsoon years, the Bay of Bengal (Arabian Sea) responds strongly (slowly) to the atmosphere than the deficit monsoon years. However, models are fail to represent the ocean's response to the atmosphere over the Bay of Bengal. The freshwater forcing improvement in the models simulates the ocean to atmosphere response over the Indian region. The present study further suggests that the improved simulation of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) variability by the GCMs is possible by improving the ocean and atmosphere feedback mechanisms, sensitivities of the models among internal variables, and orographic features necessary for the accurate simulation of intraseasonal variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]