Sensitivity of modeled Indian monsoon to Chinese and Indian aerosol emissions
The South Asian summer monsoon supplies over 80 % of India's precipitation. Industrialization over the past few decades has resulted in severe aerosol pollution in India. Understanding monsoonal sensitivity to aerosol emissions in general circulation models (GCMs) could improve predictability of observed future precipitation changes. The aims here are (1) to assess the role of aerosols in India's monsoon precipitation and (2) to determine the roles of local and regional emissions. For (1), we study the Precipitation Driver Response Model Intercomparison Project experiments. We find that the precipitation response to changes in black carbon is highly uncertain with a large intermodel spread due in part to model differences in simulating changes in cloud vertical profiles. Effects from sulfate are clearer; increased sulfate reduces Indian precipitation, a consistency through all of the models studied here. For (2), we study bespoke simulations, with reduced Chinese and/or Indian emissions in three GCMs. A significant increase in precipitation (up to ∼20 %) is found only when both countries' sulfur emissions are regulated, which has been driven in large part by dynamic shifts in the location of convective regions in India. These changes have the potential to restore a portion of the precipitation losses induced by sulfate forcing over the last few decades.
Duke Scholars
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- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
- 3702 Climate change science
- 3701 Atmospheric sciences
- 0401 Atmospheric Sciences
- 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
- 3702 Climate change science
- 3701 Atmospheric sciences
- 0401 Atmospheric Sciences
- 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences