Impact of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation on Indian summer monsoon rainfall: an assessment from CMIP5 climate models

Abstract

The present study evaluates the fidelity of 32 models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) in simulating the observed teleconnection of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) with Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR). Approximately two-thirds of the models show well-defined spatial pattern of IPO over the Pacific basin and most amongst these capture the IPO-ISMR teleconnection. In general, the models that fail to reproduce the IPO-ISMR teleconnection are the ones that are also showing a poor spatial pattern of IPO, irrespective of the extent to which they reproduce the precipitation climatology and seasonal cycle. The results reveal a strong relationship between the quality of reproducing the IPO pattern and the IPO-ISMR teleconnection in the models, in particular with respect to the tropical–extratropical as well as the equatorial Pacific-Indian Ocean sea surface temperature gradients during IPO phases. Furthermore, the CMIP5 models that are capable of reproducing the IPO-ISMR teleconnection also reasonably simulate the atmospheric circulation as well as the convergence/divergence patterns associated with the IPO. Thus, for the better understanding of decadal-to-multidecadal variability and to improve decadal prediction of rainfall over India it is therefore vital that models should simulate the IPO skillfully.