Recent changes of Northern Indian Ocean summer rainfall based on CMIP5 multi-model

This study evaluates the simulation of summer rainfall changes in the Northern Indian Ocean (NIO) based on the fifth phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The historical runs of 20 CMIP5 coupled General Circulation Models (GCMs) are analyzed. The Multi-Model ensemble (MME) of the CMIP5 models well reproduces the general feature of NIO summer rainfall. For a short period 1979-2005, 14 out of 20 models show an increased trend in the mean rainfall and a similar spatial distribution to the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) observations in MME. The increasing of the convergence in the equatorial IO results in the increase of rainfall significantly. The equatorial rainfall trend patterns seem modulated by the SST warming in the tropical Indian Ocean, which confirm the mechanism of 'warmer-get-wetter' theory. For a long period 1950-2005, the trend of monsoon rainfall over India shows a decrease over the most parts of the India except an increase over the south corn er of the Indian Peninsula, due to a weakened summer monsoon circulation. The pattern is well simulated in half of the CMIP5 models. The rainfall over the north India is different for a short period, in which rainfall increases in 1979-2005, implying possible decadal variation in the NIO summer climate.