BITMAP

Better understanding of Interregional Teleconnections for prediction in the Monsoon and Poles

Call 2015 with Belmont ForumClimate science

Most work that examines “teleconnections” to India, the pathways that connect remote
drivers with how the weather and climate of India varies from year to year, are based on
studies of the tropics. BITMAP is different! We are discovering the links between higher
latitudes and the winter rains of northern India or the summer monsoon. This includes, for
example, the fast-moving “jet stream” of air over northern India. BITMAP further considers
how changing temperatures and patterns of sea ice in the Arctic may be affecting the jet
stream and Indian weather in general.

Western disturbancesare an important type of storm supplying winter rainfall or snowfall to northern India and Pakistan. BITMAP has developed tracking software and published the first comprehensive catalogue of these storms, in addition to identifying the origin of their moisture.
Using the CMIP5 climate models, our work shows we can expect fewer of these storms in the future, meaning less winter rainfall.
Temperature gradients between the tropics and polesare an important factor driving Western Disturbances. In the past, this temperature gradient was weaker, leading to a weaker jet stream and Western Disturbances that happen less often, potentially contributing to the demise of an ancient civilisation in the Indus region of Pakistan.

About

The storm-tracking technique developed in BITMAP for winter storms over northern India
and Pakistan can be applied to operational weather forecasting models in order to produce
real-time tracks as they happen. This will allow mitigation procedures to be put in place to
alleviate the damage caused in the case of extremes events. Also, leading international
weather centres such as the Met Office can benefit from adding tracks of these storms to
their seasonal forecast products, to provide governments with information on the
likelihood of damages or the implications for water resources. Based on our predictions of
reduced numbers of these regional winter storms, at the longer-term, governments may
need to start planning for the projected reductions in future winter rainfall.

Andy Turner

I am Dr. Andy Turner, Associate Professor of Monsoon Systems and BITMAP project Principal Investigator at University of Reading. I have been researching the weather and climate of India and the wider Asian monsoon region for more than 15 years. My interests lie in making predictions of weather extremes, seasonal climate and of climate change. In all my work, I am motivated to understand why weather and climate behaves the way it does, by understanding the physical mechanisms involved.

Project consortium

University of Reading
University of Hamburg
National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting

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BITMAP is led by University of Reading Department of Meteorology, one of the world’s leading organisations for the study of atmospheric and climate sciences. It includes components of the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science and its Tropical Climate group, with expertise in seasonal prediction, climate change, monsoons, ENSO and the MJO.
The BITMAP consortium also features Universität Hamburg (Germany) and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF, India). The Hamburg group have been performing Lagrangian moisture-tracking analyses to determine origins of moisture sources for producing extremes rains in northern India, Pakistan and the Hindu KushHimalaya region. Meanwhile, NCMRWF, which also has stakeholder interests as one of the major national-level weather forecasting institutes of India, has been examining the potential impact of Arctic sea-ice patterns on seasonal forecasts of rainfall in India.

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Parent programme

Call 2015

Call for Climate Services Collaborative Research action on Climate Predictability and Inter-regional Linkages

Climate Services aim at providing more reliable climate information for the near future (months to decades) relevant for local and regional users. Within this broad context, variability of polar and tropical systems affects a large proportion of the world population. This call with the Belmont Forum aimed to contribute to the overall challenge of developing climate services with a focus on inter-regional linkages role in climate variability and predictability. Eight multi-national projects have been selected for funding through this call.

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