In view of a significant lacuna in the Himalaya-specific knowledge of forthcoming expected changes in the rainfall climatology, this study attempts to assess the expected changes in the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) pattern exclusively over the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) during 2020-2070 in comparison to a baseline period of 1970-2005 under two different warming scenarios, i.e., representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). Five climate model products from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization initiated Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment of World Climate Research Programme over south Asia region are used for this purpose. Among the several different features of ISMR, this study attempts to investigate expected changes in the average summer monsoon rainfall and percent monthly rainfall to the total monsoon seasonal rainfall using multimodel averages. Furthermore, this study attempts to identify the topographical ranges which are expected to be mostly affected by the changing average monsoon seasonal rainfall over IHR. Results from the multimodel average analysis indicate that the rainfall climatology is expected to increase by >0.75mm/day over the foothills of northwest Himalaya during 2020-2070, whereas the rainfall climatology is expected to decrease for the flood plains of Brahmaputra under a warmer climate. The monthly percent rainfall of June is expected to rise by more than 1% over the northwestern Himalaya during 2020-2040 (although insignificant at p value <0.05), whereas the same for August and September is expected to decrease over the eastern Himalaya under a warmer climate. In terms of rainfall changes along the altitudinal gradient, this study indicates that the two significant rainfall regions, one at around 900m and the other around 2000m of the northwestern Himalaya are expected to see positive changes (>1%) in rainfall climatology during 2020-2070, whereas regions more than 1500m in eastern Himalaya are expected to experience inconsistent variation in rainfall climatology under a warmer climate scenario.
1.GB Pant Natl Inst Himalayan Environm & Sustainabl, Almora 263643, Uttarakhand, India 2.Indian Inst Trop Meteorol, Dr Homi Bhabha Rd, Pune 411008, Maharashtra, India
Recommended Citation:
Mukherjee, Sandipan,Hazra, Anupam,Kumar, Kireet,et al. Simulated projection of ISMR over Indian Himalayan region: assessment from CSIRO-CORDEX South Asia experiments[J]. METEOROLOGY AND ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS,2019-01-01,131(1):63-79