International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Global warming may affect sea level, precipitation patterns, heat waves, melting of glaciers, frequent droughts and storms which alter dynamics of earth-atmosphere system. Uneven precipitation pattern can be understood well by cloud processes with the help of cloud microphysical properties. These properties can be studied by various methods but model simulation plays a significant role as it can reproduce features with high spatial and temporal resolution. Such high resolution study may be done with the help of regional climate models. Study of cloud properties at high resolution is important for a country like India as almost 70% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Thus there is a need to understand monsoon variability to sustain economy of India. Present study tries to reproduce monsoon features over Indian subcontinent and adjoining regions to know the performance of regional climate model (RegCM4.4), which is essential to gain confidence in the model. For this purpose, a normal rainfall year 2010 is chosen to study monsoon features. Paper focuses to link the properties of cloud, precipitation and relative humidity to capture major features of the monsoon. Beginning of south-west monsoon over the Arabian Sea and north-east monsoon over the Bay of Bengal is captured well by the model. During pre-monsoon, initial phase of south-west monsoon is picked well with relative humidity (80-100%) and cloud liquid water content (0.4-1.8 kg m^-2) over the Arabian Sea. Also during post-monsoon, initial phase of north-east monsoon is captured with relative humidity (80-100%) and cloud liquid water content (0.2-1.2 kg m^-2) over the Bay of Bengal. Simulation of such dependent parameters may help to understand monsoon variability and may be applicable to tropical regions.

Index Terms—Climate change, cloud microphysical properties, monsoon, regional climate model.

Ruchita Shah and Rohit Srivastava are with the Department of Science, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Raisan, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India (e-mail: ruchitapshah05@gmail.com, rohit.prl@gmail.com).
Rohit Srivastava is with Indian Centre for Climate and Societal Impacts Research (ICCSIR), Mandvi, Kachchh, Gujarat, India (e-mail: rohitphy@gmail.com).

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Cite: Ruchita Shah, Rohit Srivastava, and Rohit Srivastava, "Evaluation of RegCM 4.4 to Get Cloud and Monsoon Features with Seasons over India," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 303-307, 2018.