This award supports a US-India cooperative research project entitled Diagnosis of India's Weather Prediction Model's Forecast and Simulation Deficiencies. US PI Sumant Nigam, University of Maryland will collaborate with Indian meteorologists, Shyam Singh, Sarat Kar, and Gopal Iyengar of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), in New Delhi. They will test the physics of India's numerical weather prediction model by producing multi-year simulations of the past climate, using observed lower-boundary conditions. Analysis of the ensemble-mean climate simulation, particularly comparison with the corresponding period observations, will allow one to determine the deficiencies of the model's physics. Improvement in the model's physics will have a beneficial impact on climate simulation and on short-to-medium range weather forecasts developed by the NCMRWF.
Scope: The research goal is to diagnose the reasons for deficient weather forecasts produced at the NCMRWF by India's only operational numerical weather prediction model. Consequently, successful completion of the research will lead to improved weather forecasts in India and better understanding of the observed modes of recurrent seasonal-to-interannual variability, particularly during the Indian summer monsoon. There is immense research interest in this topic among monsoon meteorologists worldwide. Beyond the immediate objective of facilitating NCMRWF's participation in the international Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP), this research will help benchmark the model's performance, foster additional analysis of the NCMRWF model integration's, and accelerate model development by drawing on the experience of the international meteorological community. This award is jointly supported by the Division of International Programs and the Division of Atmospheric Sciences.
