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Global seasonal climate predictability in a two tiered forecast system: part I: boreal summer and fall seasons

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Abstract

This paper shows demonstrable improvement in the global seasonal climate predictability of boreal summer (at zero lead) and fall (at one season lead) seasonal mean precipitation and surface temperature from a two-tiered seasonal hindcast forced with forecasted SST relative to two other contemporary operational coupled ocean–atmosphere climate models. The results from an extensive set of seasonal hindcasts are analyzed to come to this conclusion. This improvement is attributed to: (1) The multi-model bias corrected SST used to force the atmospheric model. (2) The global atmospheric model which is run at a relatively high resolution of 50 km grid resolution compared to the two other coupled ocean–atmosphere models. (3) The physics of the atmospheric model, especially that related to the convective parameterization scheme. The results of the seasonal hindcast are analyzed for both deterministic and probabilistic skill. The probabilistic skill analysis shows that significant forecast skill can be harvested from these seasonal hindcasts relative to the deterministic skill analysis. The paper concludes that the coupled ocean–atmosphere seasonal hindcasts have reached a reasonable fidelity to exploit their SST anomaly forecasts to force such relatively higher resolution two tier prediction experiments to glean further boreal summer and fall seasonal prediction skill.

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Notes

  1. We also compare the FISH50 AROC with the rest of the National Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) models in “Appendix”.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Masao Kanamitsu, without whose pioneering development of the FISH50 AGCM this work would not have been possible. This work was supported by Grants from NOAA (NA12OAR4310078, NA10OAR4310215, NA11OAR4310110), USGS (06HQGR0125), and USDA (027865). All computations for this paper were done on the computational resources provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) under TG-ATM120017 and TG-ATM120010.

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  1. Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, P.O. Box 3064520, Tallahassee, FL, 32306-4520, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra, H. Li, Z. Wu & S. DiNapoli

  2. Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, 2035 E. Paul Dirac Dr., 200 RM Johnson Bldg., Tallahassee, FL, 32306-2840, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra, H. Li & Z. Wu

  3. Florida Climate Institute, Florida State University, 2035 E. Paul Dirac Dr., 200 RM Johnson Bldg., Tallahassee, FL, 32306-2840, USA

    Vasubandhu Misra

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Appendix: Comparison of FISH50 with the other national multi-model ensemble (NMME) models

Appendix: Comparison of FISH50 with the other national multi-model ensemble (NMME) models

A multi-institutional NMME (Kirtman et al. 2013; http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ctb/nmme/) project was initiated to conduct a comprehensive set of seasonal retrospective forecasts from multiple modeling centers in North America. They are archived and made available through the website of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Models/.NMME/). The NMME also maintains the seasonal forecasts in real time hosted by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NOAA (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/NMME/archive/). Here we compare the AROC across these NMME models for the two seasons JJA and SON at zero and one season lead for precipitation and surface temperature with FISH50. A brief outline of the NMME model resolution and their references are provided in the Table below.

See Figs. 18, 19 and 20; Table 2.

Fig. 18
figure 18

Area under the ROC averaged over global oceans for a JJA, b SON, over tropical oceans for c JJA, and d SON for low, middle, and upper terciles of NMME and FISH50 precipitation

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Fig. 19
figure 19

Area under the ROC averaged over global land for a JJA, b SON, over tropical land for c JJA, and d SON for low, middle, and upper terciles of NMME and FISH50 precipitation

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Fig. 20
figure 20

Area under the ROC averaged over global land for a JJA, b SON, over tropical land for c JJA, and d SON for low, middle, and upper terciles of NMME and FISH50 surface temperature

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Table 2 National multi-model ensemble (NMME) models
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Misra, V., Li, H., Wu, Z. et al. Global seasonal climate predictability in a two tiered forecast system: part I: boreal summer and fall seasons. Clim Dyn 42, 1425–1448 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1812-y

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