Climate models can produce more-accurate forecasts of rainfall during India's summer monsoon season than can conventional statistical analyses of sea surface temperatures.
Timothy DelSole and Jagadish Shukla at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, found no significant statistical relationship between summer monsoon rainfall in India and sea surface temperatures surrounding the country in May of each year from 1960 to 2005. They analysed predictions made by five coupled ocean–atmosphere climate models based on the same temperature data and period, and found that the models were better than the statistical methods at predicting rainfall.
The authors say the models can more accurately forecast the evolution of sea surface temperatures throughout the summer, which influences the monsoon rainfall (pictured).
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051279 (2012)
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Predicting the Indian monsoon. Nature 484, 291 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/484291e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/484291e
