As best as I understand it - all GCMs (coupled atmosphere-ocean models)
try to replicate large-scale features of the climate system, including
ENSO, monsoon, NAO etc. They are just not very good at it yet, but
improving. Higher spatial resolution but also resolution in terms of
number of atmospheric layers and oceanic layers, and improved
representation of the physical processes within each will lead to
further improvements in this area. The exercise of verifying model
specifications against observed trends is a common practice, and models
tend to do quite well in reproducing temperature variability over time
and space. Reproduction of historical precip patterns (and projections
of future patters) are notoriously far more difficult.
That said, most models do well in some regions and less well in others.
Fancy that! The British Hadley model is particularly good over northern
Europe. GFDL and PCM and CCSM (US models) are better over the US. (I
don't know how good the Japanese model is over Asia, but it appears it
doesn't do so great, based on the comment that started this thread.)
Maybe this is of GEP interest...
Otherwise, this statement below doesn't shake my confidence in the
fundamentals. But for folks in that region, improvement in this aspect
of climate models is critical, and it should be of international
interest given the social and economic teleconnections, not just the
climatic ones. There is - to be sure - lots of modeling effort going
into improving monsoon reproduction. While we're waiting.... let's
decrease vulnerability!
Two cents from the coast awaiting an El Nino winter....
Susi
Shane Mulligan wrote:
Larry - I wonder if the difference is not so much weather versus
climate, but local as opposed to regional or global variation (the
"change" in GCC). We all probably agree that the global trends are
reasonably clear and their trajectory can be anticipated. Sure,
determining climate trends is de rigeur.
But is the monsoon not also "climate" in its locales? I claim no
expertise here, but I understand the Monsoon has been a regular event
for many millions of years, and SO regular in its timing that the
arrival at any location is generally within a calendar week.
(Variations in the severity of the monsoon are common, of course.) The
loss of that regularity due to GCC is a major concern among
agricultural planners (particularly farmers)... but the question is
one of perception: is the (feared) variance caused by CC or is it a
manifestation of "change". The "extremes of weather" expected globally
are also manifestations of change, are they not? That the monsoon
defines its own "average conditions" makes it more a regional (rather
than global) CC; but changing the monsoon patterns is not a weather
event. I would argue it's more like removing winter.
Shane Mulligan
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Centre for Global Governance Research
University of Waterloo
200 University Ave. West
Waterloo, ON
N2L 3G1
“My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His
son will ride a camel.”
—Saudi saying
www.theoildrum.com <http://www.theoildrum.com>
--- On *Tue, 11/17/09, rldavis /<rlda...@newhaven.edu>/* wrote:
From: rldavis <rlda...@newhaven.edu>
Subject: Re: The Telegraph - Cold water on UN monsoon forecast models
To: "Deb Ranjan Sinha" <debsi...@gmail.com>, "Global Environmental
Education" <gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu>
Received: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 3:53 PM
This is a classic case of weather (monsoon) versus climate. The
models do
not predict weather but rather predict climate, the overall average of
conditions over a long period of years.
Larry Davis
On 11/17/09 15:41, "Deb Ranjan Sinha" <debsi...@gmail.com
</mc/compose?to=debsi...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> *None of the multiple computer simulations used by a UN
climate-change agency
> for assessments of global warming appears good enough to predict
how India¹s
> monsoon will behave, two Indian scientists have said. The
researchers examined
> 10 simulations of future climate scenarios used by the UN
Intergovernmental
> Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and found none could reproduce
correctly the
> behaviour of even 20th-century rainfall.*
>
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091117/jsp/nation/story_11748791.jsp
>
--
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Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and
University Research Scholar
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