Abstract
We examine the Florida Climate Institute–Florida State University Seasonal Hindcast (FISH50) skill at a relatively high (50 km grid) resolution two tiered Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) for boreal winter and spring seasons at zero and one season lead respectively. The AGCM in FISH50 is forced with bias corrected forecast sea surface temperature averaged from two dynamical coupled ocean–atmosphere models. The comparison of the hindcast skills of precipitation and surface temperature from FISH50 with the coupled ocean–atmosphere models reveals that the probabilistic skill is nearly comparable in the two types of forecast systems (with some improvements in FISH50 outside of the global tropics). Furthermore the drop in skill in going from zero lead (boreal winter) to one season lead (boreal spring) is also similar in FISH50 and the coupled ocean–atmosphere models. Both the forecast systems also show that surface temperature hindcasts have more skill than the precipitation hindcasts and that land based precipitation hindcasts have slightly lower skill than the corresponding hindcasts over the ocean.
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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. We also acknowledge the help of Dr. Zhaohua Wu who provided us the methodology and the data for the bias corrected SST (SSTOLF). We thank Mr. Steven DiNapoli for making Figs. 14, 15, 16. 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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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
The NMME project (Kirtman et al. 2013; http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ctb/nmme/) hosted by International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University and maintained in real time at the NCEP Climate Prediction Center (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/NMME/) are eight single tiered coupled ocean–atmosphere models, which have conducted extensive seasonal hindcasts over the same time period as FISH50 and more. In fact NMME models have completed seasonal hindcasts for several lead times throughout the year and here we compare the AROC for tercile events of seasonal mean surface land temperature and precipitation from FISH50 at zero (one season) lead time for JJA (SON) with the corresponding hindcasts of the NMME. The horizontal and vertical resolutions of the NMME models along with their references are shown in the Table below.
National Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) models
Model | Horizontal resolution | Vertical resolution | References |
---|---|---|---|
CFSv1 | T62 (~200 km) | 64 sigma | Saha et al. (2006) |
CFSv2 | T126 (~100 km) | 64 sigma-pressure | Saha et al. (2010) |
CCSM3 | T85 (~140 km) | 26 sigma-pressure | Kirtman and Min (2009) |
ECHAM-Anom | T42 (~250 km) | 19 sigma-pressure | DeWitt (2005) |
ECHAM-Dir | T42 (~250 km) | 19 sigma-pressure | DeWitt (2005) |
GFDL | 2 × 2.5 degrees | 24 Layers | Zhang et al. (2007) |
GFDL-aer04 | 2 × 2.5 degrees | 24 Layers | Zhang et al. (2007) |
GMAO | 2 × 2.5 degrees | 34 Layers | Bacmeister et al. (2000) |
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Li, H., Misra, V. Global seasonal climate predictability in a two tiered forecast system. Part II: boreal winter and spring seasons. Clim Dyn 42, 1449–1468 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1813-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1813-x