Observationally constrained projection of Afro-Asian monsoon precipitation

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30106-z
• Publication Date: 2022-05-10T10:03:22Z
• Authors: Ziming Chen; Tianjun Zhou; Xiaolong Chen; Wenxia Zhang; Lixia Zhang; Mingna Wu; Liwei Zou
• Keywords: Cyclonic Storms; 13. Climate action; Science; Climate Change; Q; Humans; Water; 01 natural sciences; Article; Floods; Forecasting; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Abstract The Afro-Asian summer monsoon (AfroASM) sustains billions of people living in many developing countries covering West Africa and Asia, vulnerable to climate change. Future increase AfroASM precipitation has been projected by current state-of-the-art models, but large inter-model spread exists. Here we show that the projection is related present-day interhemispheric thermal contrast (ITC). Based on 30 models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, find with a larger ITC trend during 1981–2014 tend project greater increase. Since most overestimate trends, emergent constraint indicates constrained reduced 70% raw projection, largest reduction (49%). land area experiencing significant increases (runoff) 57% (66%) projection. Smaller will likely reduce flooding risk, while posing challenge future water resources management.