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The retrospective prediction of ENSO from 1881 to 2000 by a hybrid coupled model: (II) Interdecadal and decadal variations in predictability

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Abstract

In this study, the retrospective predictions of ENSO (El Niño and Southern Oscillation) were performed for the period from 1881 to 2000 using a hybrid coupled model, which is an ocean general circulation model coupled to a linear statistical atmospheric model, and using a newly developed initialization scheme of SST assimilation by Ensemble Kalman Filter. With the retrospective predictions of the past 120 years, some important issues of ENSO predictability (measured by correlation and RMSE skills of NINO3 sea surface temperature anomaly index) were studied including decadal/interdecadal variations in ENSO predictability and the mechanisms responsible for these variations. Emphasis was placed on investigating the relationship between ENSO predictability and various characteristics of ENSO system such as the signal strength, the irregularity of periodicity, the noise and the nonlinearity. It is found that there are significant decadal/interdecadal variations in the prediction skills of ENSO during the past 120 years. The ENSO events were more predictable during the late nineteenth and the late twentieth centuries. The decadal/interdecadal variations of prediction skills are strongly related to the strength of sea-surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) signals, especially to the strength of SSTA signals at the frequencies of 2–4 year periods. The SSTA persistence, dominated by SSTA signals at frequencies over 4-year periods, also has a positive relationship to prediction skills. The high-frequency noise, on the other hand, has a strong inverse relationship to prediction skills, suggesting that it also probably plays an important role in ENSO predictability.

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Notes

  1. The correlation was calculated using samples of 20-year period, thus the criteria of its statistical significance would be 0.22 at the confidence level of 95% if the samples used were independent. However, due to a high persistence, the Pacific SSTA is of non-zero trend and autocorrelated time series, serial correlation must be considered when a statistically significant test is performed (Ebisuzaki 1997).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Tom Smith for detailed comments on the original manuscript. This work was supported by Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) Grant GR-523.

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  1. Environmental Science and Engineering, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada, V2N 4Z9

    Ziwang Deng & Youmin Tang

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  1. Ziwang Deng
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Correspondence to Youmin Tang.

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Deng, Z., Tang, Y. The retrospective prediction of ENSO from 1881 to 2000 by a hybrid coupled model: (II) Interdecadal and decadal variations in predictability. Clim Dyn 32, 415–428 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0398-2

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