Srinivasan, G. and M. Hulme C. Jones 1995b: An evaluation
of the spatial and interannual variability of tropical precipitation as
simulated by GCMs. Geophysical Research Letters, 22, 1697-1700.
Precipitation is one of the most difficult variables to
simulate in a General Circulation Model and arguably one of the most important.
The Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) provides an opportunity
to examine the simulation of precipitation in a wide array of models. Monthly
precipitation fields produced by a subset of 19 currently available AMIP
model experiments are evaluated for the tropical region rising a land-only
observed dataset for the period 1980-1988. The models show large variations
in their ability to reproduce observed tropical precipitation, although
spatial correlations indicate that some of the models simulate the pattern
of observed precipitation fields fairly well. The correlations are strongest
during boreal winter (D]F) and weakest during the boreal summer (JJA).
Comparison between model and observed precipitation time series for two
Central Pacific locations show that most models are unable to reliably
reproduce interannual precipitation variability in this region.