Ranking general circulation models for India using TOPSIS

• Published in: Journal of water and climate change 2015-01, Vol.6 (2), p.288-299
• Main Authors: Raju, K Srinivasa, Kumar, D Nagesh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Catchment area; Circulation; Climate; Climate change; Climate models; Climatic conditions; Decision making; Evaluation; Freshwater; General circulation models; Global climate; Global climate models; Hydrology; Magnetic resonance imaging; Precipitation; Precipitation rate; River basins; Rivers; Studies; Temperature; Temperature effects
• ISSN: 2040-2244; 2408-9354
• DOI: 10.2166/wcc.2014.074

Eleven general circulation models/global climate models (GCMs) – BCCR-BCCM2.0, INGV-ECHAM4, GFDL2.0, GFDL2.1, GISS, IPSL-CM4, MIROC3, MRI-CGCM2, NCAR-PCMI, UKMO-HADCM3 and UKMO-HADGEM1 – are evaluated for Indian climate conditions using the performance indicator, skill score (SS). Two climate variables, temperature T (at three levels, i.e. 500, 700, 850 mb) and precipitation rate (Pr) are considered resulting in four SS-based evaluation criteria (T500, T700, T850, Pr). The multicriterion decision-making method, technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution, is applied to rank 11 GCMs. Efforts are made to rank GCMs for the Upper Malaprabha catchment and two river basins, namely, Krishna and Mahanadi (covered by 17 and 15 grids of size 2.5° × 2.5°, respectively). Similar efforts are also made for India (covered by 73 grid points of size 2.5° × 2.5°) for which an ensemble of GFDL2.0, INGV-ECHAM4, UKMO-HADCM3, MIROC3, BCCR-BCCM2.0 and GFDL2.1 is found to be suitable. It is concluded that the proposed methodology can be applied to similar situations with ease.