Predictability of weather and climate

Abstract:

Three 10 year ensemble decadal forecast experiments have been performed with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts coupled forecast system using an initialization strategy common in seasonal forecasting with realistic initial conditions. One experiment initializes the ocean in a standard way using an ocean-only simulation forced with an atmospheric reanalysis and with strong relaxation to observed sea surface temperatures. The other two experiments initialize the ocean from a similar ocean-only run that, in addition, assimilates subsurface observations. This is the first time that these experiments were performed. The system drifts from the realistic initial conditions toward the model climate, the drift being of the same order as, if not larger than, the interannual signal. There are small drift differences in the three experiments that reflect mainly the influence of dynamical ocean processes in controlling the adjustment between the initialized state and the model climate in the extratropics. In spite of the drift, the predictions show that the system is able to skillfully predict some of the interannual variability of the global and regional air and ocean temperature. No significant forecast quality benefit of the assimilation of ocean observations is found over the extratropics, although a negative impact of the assimilation of incorrect expendable bathythermograph profiles has been found for the global mean upper ocean heat content and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. The results illustrate the importance of reducing the important model drift and the ocean analysis uncertainty. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.

Abstract:

The stratospheric climate and variability from simulations of sixteen chemistry-climate models is evaluated. On average the polar night jet is well reproduced though its variability is less well reproduced with a large spread between models. Polar temperature biases are less than 5 K except in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) lower stratosphere in spring. The accumulated area of low temperatures responsible for polar stratospheric cloud formation is accurately reproduced for the Antarctic but underestimated for the Arctic. The shape and position of the polar vortex is well simulated, as is the tropical upwelling in the lower stratosphere. There is a wide model spread in the frequency of major sudden stratospheric warnings (SSWs), late biases in the breakup of the SH vortex, and a weak annual cycle in the zonal wind in the tropical upper stratosphere. Quantitatively, "metrics" indicate a wide spread in model performance for most diagnostics with systematic biases in many, and poorer performance in the SH than in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Correlations were found in the SH between errors in the final warming, polar temperatures, the leading mode of variability, and jet strength, and in the NH between errors in polar temperatures, frequency of major SSWs, and jet strength. Models with a stronger QBO have stronger tropical upwelling and a colder NH vortex. Both the qualitative and quantitative analysis indicate a number of common and long-standing model problems, particularly related to the simulation of the SH and stratospheric variability. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.