Analysis of the simulated climatic characters of the South Asia High with a flexible coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM

Abstract

The ability of a climate model to reproduce the climatic characters of the South Asia High (SAH) is assessed by analyzing the 110-yr output of a Flexible Coupled GCM, version 0 (FGCM-0). Comparing the results of FGCM-0 with the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data, the major findings show that FGCM-0 has better results in simulation of the geopotential height field at 100 hPa, and reproduces fairly the main atmospheric circulation centers. However, there are still some differences in the simulated results compared with the reanalysis data. The coupled model also successfully reproduces the mean seasonal variation of the SAH, that is, it moves from the Pacific Ocean to the Asian continent, remaining over the Tibetan Plateau from winter to summer, and then withdraws from the Tibetan Plateau to the Pacific Ocean from summer to winter. However, such observed relationships between the SAH positions and the summer precipitation patterns cannot be fairly reproduced in the FGCM-0.