Symmetric and asymmetric response of Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall to different ENSO decay phases in observations and CMIP6 models

The present study assesses the ability of the World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-6 (CMIP6) models in simulating the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) rainfall variability and its symmetric or asymmetric relationship with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) decay phase. The El Niño decays are classified into three categories based on their transition characteristics (rapid/slow) with respect to the subsequent boreal summer season, namely El Niño early-decay, El Niño mid-decay, and El Niño no-decay. Similarly, La Niña decays are also classified into the La Niña early-decay, La Niña mid-decay, and La Niña no-decay. In the case of El Niño and La Niña early-decay events, the observed summer rainfall anomalies over India are similar in spatial distribution and amplitude but opposite in sign, suggesting the symmetric rainfall response. This symmetric response is mainly due to the influence of the westward extension of western north Pacific (WNP) anomalous anticyclone/cyclone accompanied by tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) warming/cooling. In contrast to this, summers of El Niño and La Niña mid-decay events exhibited asymmetric rainfall anomaly pattern over India. This asymmetry in rainfall pattern between these two summers is attributed to differences mainly in the moisture divergence and low-level circulation over the Indo-Western Pacific region. Similar to El Niño and La Niña mid-decay cases, the summers of observed El Niño and La Niña no-decay events displayed ISM rainfall asymmetry. Differences in spatial distribution and magnitude of Sea surface temperature anomalies and related atmospheric circulation between these events mainly responsible for ISM rainfall asymmetry. Analysis of CMIP6 revealed that only ∼ 14% of selected CMIP6 models have simulated the rainfall anomalies somewhat correctly compared to observations during summers of different decay phases of ENSO. Further, symmetric/asymmetric response of summer rainfall anomalies over India between decay phases of El Niño and La Niña are not well captured by CMIP6 models. It is also noted that the CMIP6 models have displayed a tendency to simulate positive (negative) Indian Ocean Dipole conditions during the summers of El Niño no-decay (La Niña no-decay) events unlike in the observations. •CMIP6 models could simulate differences in decay phases of El Niño and La Niña well.•Models showed limited skills in capturing ISM rainfall related decay phases of ENSO.•Models tend to simu