The role of horizontal resolution in simulating drivers of the global hydrological cycle

The role of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) horizontal resolution in representing the global energy budget and hydrological cycle is assessed, with the aim of improving the understanding of model uncertainties in simulating the hydrological cycle. We use two AGCMs from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre: HadGEM1-A at resolutions ranging from 270 to 60 km, and HadGEM3-A ranging from 135 to 25 km. The models exhibit a stable hydrological cycle, although too intense compared to reanalyses and observations. This over-intensity is explained by excess surface shortwave radiation, a common error in general circulation models (GCMs). This result is insensitive to resolution. However, as resolution is increased, precipitation decreases over the ocean and increases over the land. This is associated with an increase in atmospheric moisture transport from ocean to land, which changes the partitioning of moisture fluxes that contribute to precipitation over land from less local to more non-local moisture sources. The results start to converge at 60-km resolution, which underlines the excessive reliance of the mean hydrological cycle on physical parametrization (local unresolved processes) versus model dynamics (large-scale resolved processes) in coarser HadGEM1 and HadGEM3 GCMs. This finding may be valid for other GCMs, showing the necessity to analyze other chains of GCMs that may become available in the future with such a range of horizontal resolutions. Our finding supports the hypothesis that heterogeneity in model parametrization is one of the underlying causes of model disagreement in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) exercises

Equatorial Atlantic Ocean dynamics in a coupled ocean–atmosphere model simulation

The ocean temperatures and zonal currents at the equatorial Atlantic simulated by an improved version of the Brazilian earth system model (BESM), with changes in the cloud cover scheme and optical properties of the atmospheric component, are analyzed and compared to those obtained from a previous version of BESM and also from other seven selected CMIP5 models. It is shown that this updated version of BESM, despite some persistent biases, more accurately represents the surface temperature variation at the Equator and the equatorial thermocline east–west slope. These improvements are associated to a more realistic seasonal cycle achieved for the Atlantic equatorial undercurrent, as well as sea surface temperatures and zonal wind stress. The better simulation of the equatorial undercurrent is, in its turn, credited to a more realistic representation of the surface wind position and strength at the tropical Atlantic by the coupled model. With many of the systematic errors noticed in the previous version of the model alleviated, this version of BESM can be considered as a useful tool for modelers involved in Atlantic variability studies

Moisture variability over the Indo-Pacific region and its influence on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall

The Indo-Pacific Ocean (i.e. region between 30°E and 150°E) has been experiencing a warming since the 1950s. At the same time, the large-scale summer monsoon rainfall over India and the moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea are both decreasing. In this study, we intend to investigate how the decrease of moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea is related to the Indo-Pacific Ocean warming and how this could affect the variability of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall. We performed the analysis for the period 1951–2012 based on observed precipitation, sea surface temperature and atmospheric reanalysis products and we verified the robustness of the result by comparing different datasets. The decreasing trend of moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea coincides with an increasing trend of moisture over the western Pacific region. This is accompanied by the strengthening (weakening) of the upward motion over the western Pacific (East Africa/Arabian Sea) that, consequently, contributes to modulate the western Pacific-Indian Ocean Walker circulation. At the same time, the low-level westerlies are weakening over the peninsular India, thus contributing to the reduction of moisture transport towards India. Therefore, rainfall has decreased over the Western Ghats and central-east India. Contrary to previous decades, since 2003 moisture over the East Africa/Arabian Sea started to increase and this is accompanied by the strengthening of convection due to increased warming of sea surface temperature over the western Arabian Sea. Despite this moisture increase over the Arabian Sea, we found that moisture transport is still weakening over the Indian landmass in the very recent decade and this has been contributing to the decreased precipitation over the northeast India and southern part of the Western Ghats