Projected increases in daily to decadal variability of Asian‐Australian monsoon rainfall

Changes in rainfall variability in future climate will pose challenges for adaptation. To evaluate changes in Asian‐Australian monsoon wet season rainfall, daily data from historical and future (Representative Concentration Pathway “RCP8.5”) climate simulations are band pass‐filtered to isolate vari...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2017-06, Vol.44 (11), p.5683-5690
Main Authors: Brown, Josephine R., Moise, Aurel F., Colman, Robert A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric moisture
Climate
climate change
Climate models
Computer simulation
Daily
East Asian monsoon
Future climates
Methods
Moisture
Monsoon rainfall
Monsoons
precipitation
Rain
Rainfall
Rainfall variability
Rainy season
Scale (ratio)
Time
Variability
Weather forecasting
Wet season
Wind
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Summary:Changes in rainfall variability in future climate will pose challenges for adaptation. To evaluate changes in Asian‐Australian monsoon wet season rainfall, daily data from historical and future (Representative Concentration Pathway “RCP8.5”) climate simulations are band pass‐filtered to isolate variability on near‐daily, weekly, monthly, intraseasonal, annual, interannual, and decadal time scales. This method is used to quantify changes in variability from 35 coupled climate models for each time scale over the Australian, South Asian, and East Asian monsoon domains. In nearly all cases, the median model change is positive, indicating increased rainfall variability, although with large model spread. The role of increased atmospheric moisture is examined by estimating the change due to an idealized thermodynamic enhancement. This enhancement produces increases in variability that are within the range of the simulated changes under the RCP8.5 scenario, indicating that thermodynamic responses provide a first‐order explanation for the increased daily to decadal monsoon rainfall variability. Key Points Daily to decadal variability of Asian‐Australian summer monsoon rainfall increases in CMIP5 projections Fractional increases in variability are largest for the South Asian monsoon and smallest for the Australian monsoon Thermodynamic increases in atmospheric moisture can explain a large fraction of the increases in monsoon rainfall variability
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2017GL073217