Reliable Drought Projections over India for Twenty First Century

Abstract

Drought is one of the most frequently occurring natural disasters in India. In the recent years the frequency of drought is increasing and area coverage of drought is expanding. The Indian economy and agriculture is mainly depends on the rainfall. Hence it is very important to study the behavior of Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) and reliable projections of droughts for the future planning. There were 16 drought years from 1951-2015 in ISMR and out of this the recent decade was experienced abnormal increase in drought years. The regional studies on variability in ISMR and drought shows the spatial distribution of drought is also changing. In this study we develop a generic methodology to identify the reliability of CMIP5 climate models based on the historical simulations (1951- 2005) based on multi-source observations/reanalysis to quantify. Results show that the identified climate models based on generic methodology (multi-model-ensemble, MME) is better simulated the mean and variability than all model ensemble. The identified climate models were used generate for the future projections using RCP scenarios for the period 2020-2100. The MME is showing an increasing trend in the frequency and intensity of drought in the coming decades.