Asian Monsoon Changes and the Role of Aerosol and Greenhouse Gas Forcing

Abstract:

Changes in Asian summer (June to August) monsoon in response to aerosol and greenhouse gas forcing are examined using observations and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 5 (CMIP5) multi-model, multi-realization ensemble. Results show that during the historical period, CMIP5 models show a predominantly drying trend in Asian monsoon, while in the 21st Century under representative concentration pathway 8.5 (rcp8.5) scenario, monsoon rainfall enhances across the entire Asian domain. The thermodynamic and dynamic mechanisms causing the changes are evaluated using the moisture budget analysis. The drying trend in the CMIP5 historical simulations and the wetting trend in the rcp8.5 projections can be explained by the relative importance of dynamical and thermodynamical contributions to the total moisture convergence. While thermodynamic mechanism dominates in the future, the historical rainfall changes are dominated by the changes in circulation. The relative contributions of aerosols and greenhouse gases (GHGs) on the historical monsoon change are further examined using CMIP5 single-forcing simulations. Rainfall reduces under aerosol forcing and increases under greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. Aerosol forcing dominates over the greenhouse effect during the historical period, leading to the general drying trend in the all-forcing simulations. While the thermodynamic change of mean moisture convergence in the all-forcing case is dominated by the GHG forcing, the dynamic change in mean moisture convergence in the all-forcing case is dominated by the aerosol forcing. Further analysis using atmospheric GCM with prescribed aerosol and GHG radiative forcing versus those with the prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) warming suggests that the weak circulation changes due to GHG forcing is a result of the cancellation between CO2 radiative forcing and the SST warming, while aerosol radiative effect tends to enhance the circulation response due to SST forcing.