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Can the uncertainties of Madden-Jullian Oscillation cause a significant “Spring Predictability Barrier” for ENSO events?

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Abstract

With the Zebiak-Cane model and a parameterized stochastic representation of intraseasonal forcing, the impact of the uncertainties of Madden-Jullian Oscillation (MJO) on the “Spring Predictability Barrier (SPB)” for El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) prediction is studied. The parameterized form of MJO forcing is added physically to the Zebiak-Cane model to obtain the so-called Zebiak-Cane-MJO model and then the effects of initial error, stochastic model error, and their joint error mode on the SPB associated with El Niño prediction are estimated. The results show that the model errors caused by stochastic MJO forcing could hardly lead to a significant SPB while initial errors can do; furthermore, the joint error mode of initial error and model error associated with the stochastic MJO forcing can also lead to a significant SPB. These demonstrate that the initial error is probably the main error source of the SPB, which may provide a theoretical foundation of data assimilation for ENSO forecasts.

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Correspondence to Wansuo Duan  (段晚锁).

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Sponsored by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-QN203), National Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2010CB950400 and 2012CB955202), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (41176013).

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Peng, Y., Duan, W. & Xiang, J. Can the uncertainties of Madden-Jullian Oscillation cause a significant “Spring Predictability Barrier” for ENSO events?. Acta Meteorol Sin 26, 566–578 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-012-0503-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-012-0503-7

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