Indian Summer Monsoon Precipitation Climatology in a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model: Impacts of Convective Parameterization on Systematic Biases
Authors: Mukhopadhyay P. , Taraphdar S. , Goswami B. N. , Krishnakumar K. 
Published: October 2009

In an attempt to develop a better simulation of the climatology of monsoon precipitation in climate models, this paper investigates the impacts of different convective closures on systematic biases of an Indian monsoon precipitation climatology in a high-resolution regional climate model. For this purpose, the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model is run at 45- and 15-km (two-way nested) resolution with three convective parameterization schemes, namely the Grell–Devenyi (GD), the Betts–Miller–Janjić (BMJ), and the Kain–Fritsch (KF), for the period 1 May–31 October 2001–07. The model is forced with the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data as the initial and boundary conditions. The simulated June–September (JJAS) mean monsoon rainfall with the three convective schemes is compared with the observations. KF is found to have a high moist bias over the central and western coastal Indian region while GD shows the opposite. Among the three, BMJ is able to produce a reasonable mean monsoon pattern. In an attempt to get further insight into the seasonal bias and its evolution, the probability distribution function (PDF) of different rain-rate categories and their percentage contribution to the seasonal total are computed. BMJ and KF underestimate the observations for lighter rain rates and overestimate for rain-rate categories of more than 10 mm day−1. GD shows an overestimation for lighter rain and an underestimation of PDF for moderate categories. The seasonal patterns of evolution of PDF plots of three rain-rate categories are analyzed to determine whether the convective schemes show any systematic bias throughout the season or if they have problems during certain phases of the monsoon. This shows that the GD systematically overestimates the lighter rain rate and underestimates the moderate rain rate throughout the season, whereas BMJ and KF have problems in the initial stages. The heavy rain category is systematically overestimated by the KF compared to the other two. To further evaluate the proportionate contribution of each rain-rate bin to the total rain, the percentage contribution of each rain rate to the seasonal total is computed. Analyzing all the rain-rate simulations produced by the three schemes, it is found that KF has a moist bias and GD has a dry bias in the spatiotemporal distribution of the monsoon precipitation. Further, this paper investigates the causes behind the mean monsoon precipitation bias. It is shown that GD produces a model climate where the vertical velocity is less than that of the observations up to 500 hPa and the vertically integrated moist instability is also weaker. KF, on the other hand, shows a higher than the observed vertical velocity and a stronger moist instability. Along with this, the vertical profile of heating suggests a warmer middle level in the KF case and significantly reduced midlevel heating for GD. Thus, KF (GD) has produced a model atmosphere that has a stronger (weaker) convective instability to produce the observed bias in the model precipitation. BMJ is found to simulate a reasonable heating profile, along with the realistic moist instability and seasonal cycle of evaporation and condensation. Insight derived from the analysis is expected to help improve the convective parameterizations.