Indian Peninsula Summer Climate Change in the Middle of Twenty-First Century by Regional and Global Climate Models

Using the results from three global climate models (GCMs) and seven regional climate models (RCMs), summer monsoon climate changes over Indian Peninsula are projected under the IPCC A1B emission scenario for 2041-2060. For the control climate of 1981-2000, most nested RCMs show advancements over the driving GCM on the temporal-spatial distributions of temperature and precipitation over Indian Peninsula, they also produce advanced monsoon onset for control climate by 1-2 pentads, which is similar to the result of driving GCM of ECHAM5. For future climate widespread summer warming is projected over Indian Peninsula by all climate models, with the multi-RCMs averaged (MME) temperature increasing of 1℃ to 2.5℃ and the maximum warming center located in northern Indian Peninsula. Large discrepancies in the summer monsoon precipitation are projected by climate models. Overall wetter condition is shown in MME with significant increase of monsoon rainfall over southern India, with inter-model spread ranging from -8.9% to 14.8%. Compared to the control climate, most RCMs project advanced monsoon onset, and all climate models except CCAMP and two RegCM3 models project stronger summer monsoon during 2041-2060.