High-resolution climate change scenarios for India for the 21st century

This report uses a state-of-the-art regional climate modelling system, known as PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies), to develop high-resolution climate change scenarios for India.

Key findings:

• PRECIS simulations under scenarios of increasing greenhouse gas concentration and sulphate aerosols indicate a marked increase in both rainfall and temperature towards the end of the 21st century. 
• Surface and air temperature show similar patterns of projected changes, though on different magnitudes. 
• A generally equal warming is spread throughout the country, but there are substantial spatial differences in the projected rainfall change, with West Central India showing the maximum expected increase in rainfall. 
• Extremes in maximum and minimum temperatures are also expected to increase into the future, however, night temperatures are increasing faster than day temperatures.
• PRECIS shows good skills in depicting the surface climate over the Indian region, particularly the orographic patterns of summer monsoon precipitation.
• A major bias involving overestimation of rainfall over the eastern peninsula has been inherited by the regional model from its parent model, indicating the critical importance of the skills of driving GCMs in representing the large-scale features.