Dr Antje Weisheimer (she)

Abstract:

Seasonal forecasting systems have been operational for over two decades. Here we present a systematic analysis of the performance of operational seasonal forecasting models since their inception. We analyse seasonal forecasting systems from three major international operational centres that have produced and coordinated continuously on operational seasonal forecasts over the past 20 years. Due to the small sample size of available forecasts, it is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions using historical operational forecasts alone, therefore we focus primarily on available model hindcasts. Our analysis, which accounts for differences in ensemble size and period across the forecasting systems, demonstrates that there have been clear improvements in some regions through the different model eras. For both the boreal winter and summer hindcasts, there have been significant improvements in forecasting the tropical regions, which are concurrent with improvements in the skill of tropical sea‐surface temperature (SST) forecasts. These improvements in the Tropics are associated with increased predictability of temperature and precipitation across various continental regions on seasonal timescales. For the extratropics, the picture is more mixed, with strong improvements only evident during the boreal winter season over the North Pacific and North America. The sources of improvement over the winter extratropics are found to be strongly related to improvements in tropical SST skill and related improvements in the strength of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnection to the Pacific/North America pattern (PNA). Improvements of seasonal forecast skill over the rest of the extratropics, such as over Eurasia, are generally absent or patchy in individual models. The improvements that are found are most pronounced in the newest era models and are broadly associated with improvements in atmospheric model resolution. These improvements in skill are also evident in representative multi‐model ensembles that represent more closely how operational forecasts are used in practice.

Abstract:

We assess near-surface temperature and sea surface temperature trends in 8 seasonal forecast systems in the Copernicus Climate Change Service archive, over the common hindcast period (1993–2016). All but one of the systems show a faster warming of the global-mean, relative to observations in both boreal summer and winter seasons. On average, systems warm at 0.21K/decade and 0.22K/decade for winter and summer, respectively, compared to 0.17K/decade and 0.19K/decade for ERA5. In summer, forecast systems tend to show an excessive warming of the tropical Pacific, tropical Atlantic and southern mid-latitudes, which contributes to the difference in global warming rates compared to observations. In contrast, greater warming in the northern mid-latitudes contributes most to trend differences for winter. The faster warming of models over this period has important implications for seasonal forecasts of future global and regional temperature and suggests further work is required to understand this bias.

Abstract:

While it is widely believed that the intense rainfall in summer 2022 over Pakistan was substantially exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change1, 2, climate models struggled to confirm this3, 4. Using a high-resolution operational seasonal forecasting system that successfully predicted the extreme wet conditions, we perform counterfactual experiments simulating pre-industrial and future conditions. Both experiments also exhibit strong anomalous rainfall, indicating a limited role of CO2-induced forcing. We attribute 10% of the total rainfall to historical increases in CO2 and ocean temperature. However, further increases in the future suggest a weak mean precipitation reduction but with increased variability. By decomposing rainfall and large-scale circulation into CO2 and SST-related signals, we illustrate a tendency for these signals to compensate each other in future scenarios. This suggests that historical CO2 impacts may not reliably predict future responses. Accurately capturing local dynamics is therefore essential for regional climate adaptation planning and for informing loss and damage discussions.