资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Present study investigates the similarities and differences in the pattern of dust load and rainfall and their relationship over the South Asian monsoon region under various future warming scenarios with respect to the historical period using multiple coupled climate model runs that participated in Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Based on statistically robust significance tests, we unravel several likely changes in the pattern of the dust load and rainfall over the South Asia under different future warming scenarios by the end of 21st century compared to the historical period. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test results reveal a significant change (at 5% significance level) in the amount of dust and rainfall under different warming scenarios over the study region. Northern part of the Indian subcontinent is likely to witness increased dust loading in future, and regions with increase in dust load are also likely to be the regions of increased rainfall over North India. Positive correlation between rainfall over the Indian region and dust over the Arabian region is also likely to strengthen in future. Considerable changes in the spatial correlation pattern between dust and rainfall are noted under different representative concentration pathways; however, no noteworthy changes are recorded in their temporal relationship. Notable intermodel differences in the patterns of dust load and rainfall relationship over South Asia are possibly caused by variations in the dust emission schemes among the CMIP5 models as well as the parameterization of aerosol indirect effect in addition to the differences in the meteorology simulated by various models under identical forcing scenarios.