Dynamics of the Indian monsoon and ENSO relationships in the SINTEX global coupled model

This paper uses recent gridded climatological data and a coupled general circulation model (GCM) simulation in order to assess the relationships between the interannual variability of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The focus is on the dynamics of the ISM-ENSO relationships and the ability of the state-of-the-art coupled GCM to reproduce the complex lead-lag relationships between the ISM and the ENSO. The coupled GCM is successful in reproducing the ISM circulation and rainfall climatology in the Indian areas even though the entire ISM circulation is weaker relative to that observed. In both observations and in the simulation, the ISM rainfall anomalies are significantly associated with fluctuations of the Hadley circulation and the 200 hPa zonal wind anomalies over the Indian Ocean. A quasi-biennial time scale is found to structure the ISM dynamical and rainfall indices in both cases. Moreover, ISM indices have a similar interannual variability in the simulation and observations. The coupled model is less successful in simulating the annual cycle in the tropical Pacific. A major model bias is the eastward displacement of the western North Pacific inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ), near the dateline, during northern summer. This introduces a strong semiannual component in Pacific Walker circulation indices and central equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures. Another weakness of the coupled model is a less-than-adequate simulation of the Southern Oscillation due to an erroneous eastward extension of the Southern Pacific convergence zone (SPCZ) year round. Despite these problems, the coupled model captures some aspects of the interannual variability in the tropical Pacific. ENSO events are phase-locked with the annual cycle as observed, but are of reduced amplitude relative to the observations. Wavelet analysis of the model Niño34 time series shows enhanced power in the 2–4 year band, as compared to the 2–8 year range for observations during the 1950–2000 period. The ISM circulation is weakened during ENSO years in both the simulation and the observations. However, the model fails to reproduce the lead-lag relationship between the ISM and Niño34 sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Furthermore, lag correlations show that the delayed response of the wind stress over the central Pacific to ISM variability is insignificant in the simulation. These features are mainly due to the unrealistic interannual variability simulated by the model in the western North Pacific. The amplitude and even the sign of the simulated surface and upper level wind anomalies in these areas are not consistent with observed patterns during weak/strong ISM years. The ISM and western North Pacific ITCZ fluctuate independently in the observations, while they are negatively and significantly correlated in the simulation. This isolates the Pacific Walker circulation from the ISM forcing. These systematic errors may also contribute to the reduced amplitude of ENSO variability in the coupled simulation. Most of the unrealistic features in simulating the Indo-Pacific interannual variability may be traced back to systematic errors in the base state of the coupled model.