Simulation of the Asian Summer Monsoon with the CCC GCM-1

Abstract

The climate literature contains a considerable amount of indirect evidence that there is a connection betweenthe size of the spring Tibetan snowpack and the strength of the subsequent Asian summer monsoon. This paperreports on a study that was conducted to search for evidence of a direct snow-monsoon interaction in a simulatedclimatology derived from two long integrations of the Canadian Climate Centre's GCM version 1. Statisticalmethods based on a combination of empirical orthogonal function analysis and canonical correlation analysiswere the primary investigative tools. Only a weak signal was found. It is therefore concluded that either thesimulated variability ofthe snow on Tibet is too small, the model does not react appropriately to the simulatedvariability, or the true natural snow-monsoon mechanism is weak and any snow-monsoon connection reliesupon a third factor. The first possibility is considered to be remote: the model simulates substantial interannualvariability of Tibetan snow. The second and third possibilities are more likely. In particular, the physical mechanism that is thought to connect Tibetan snow with the Asian monsoon may not be properly simulated inthe model.