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Abstract:
In the present study, the influence of soil thermal characteristics (STC) on the simulated monsoon climate over south Asia is analyzed. The study was motivated by a common warm temperature bias over the plains of northern India that has been noticed in several global and regional climate models. To address this warm bias and its relation to STC, two sensitivity experiments have been performed with the regional climate model REMO of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The control experiment uses the standard soil thermal characteristic of the model that corresponds to a moist soil. The second experiment uses modified STC that characterize a dry soil, which is more representative of the considered region, as a large part of the region has arid, semi-arid or subtropical summer wet conditions. Both experiments were conducted over 20 years using re-analysis data as lateral boundary conditions. Results show that using the modified STC the predominant regional warm bias has reduced substantially, leading to a better and more realistic surface temperature compared to observations over south Asia. Although, the magnitude of bias has reduced, the warm bias still exists over the region suggesting that other atmospheric and land surface processes also play a role, such as aerosols and irrigation. These need to be addressed adequately in future modeling studies over the region.
