Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 367–386, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-367-2021 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Robust increase of Indian monsoon rainfall and its variability under future warming in CMIP6 models Anja Katzenberger1,2, Jacob Schewe1, Julia Pongratz2,3, and Anders Levermann1,4,5 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany 2Department of Geography, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany 3Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany 4LDEO, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 5Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany Correspondence: Anders Levermann (
[email protected]) Received: 15 October 2020 – Discussion started: 19 October 2020 Revised: 16 February 2021 – Accepted: 3 March 2021 – Published: 14 April 2021 Abstract. The Indian summer monsoon is an integral part of the global climate system. As its seasonal rainfall plays a crucial role in India’s agriculture and shapes many other aspects of life, it affects the livelihood of a fifth of the world’s population. It is therefore highly relevant to assess its change under potential future climate change. Global climate models within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) indicated a consistent increase in monsoon rainfall and its variability under global warming. Since the range of the results of CMIP5 was still large and the confidence in the models was limited due to partly poor representation of observed rainfall, the updates within the latest generation of climate models in CMIP6 are of interest. Here, we analyze 32 models of the latest CMIP6 exercise with regard to their annual mean monsoon rainfall and its variability.