Weather and seasonal climate prediction for South America using a multi-model superensemble

This work examines the feasibility of weather and seasonal climate predictions for South America using the multi-model synthetic superensemble approach for climate, and the multi-model conventional superensemble approach for numerical weather prediction, both developed at Florida State University (FSU). The effect on seasonal climate forecasts of the number of models used in the synthetic superensemble is investigated. It is shown that the synthetic superensemble approach for climate and the conventional superensemble approach for numerical weather prediction can reduce the errors over South America in seasonal climate prediction and numerical weather prediction. For climate prediction, a suite of 13 models is used. The forecast lead-time is 1 month for the climate forecasts, which consist of precipitation and surface temperature forecasts. The multi-model ensemble is comprised of four versions of the FSU-Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Model, seven models from the Development of a European Multi-model Ensemble System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction (DEMETER), a version of the Community Climate Model (CCM3), and a version of the predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA). The results show that conditions over South America are appropriately simulated by the Florida State University Synthetic Superensemble (FSUSSE) in comparison to observations and that the skill of this approach increases with the use of additional models in the ensemble. When compared to observations, the forecasts are generally better than those from both a single climate model and the multi-model ensemble mean, for the variables tested in this study. For numerical weather prediction, the conventional Florida State University Superensemble (FSUSE) is used to predict the mass and motion fields over South America. Predictions of mean sea level pressure, 500 hPa geopotential height, and 850 hPa wind are made with a multi-model superensemble comprised of six global models for the period January, February, and December of 2000. The six global models are from the following forecast centers: FSU, Bureau of Meteorology Research Center (BMRC), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and Recherche en Prevision Numerique (RPN). Predictions of precipitation are made for the period January, February, and December of 2001 with a ‘multi-analysis-multi-model’ superensemble where, in addition to the six forecast models just mentioned, five additional versions of the FSU model are used in the ensemble, each with a different initialization (analysis) based on different physical initialization procedures. On the basis of observations, the results show that the FSUSE provides the best forecasts of the mass and motion field variables to forecast day 5, when compared to both the models comprising the ensemble and the multi-model ensemble mean during the wet season of December–February over South America. Individual case studies show that the FSUSE provides excellent predictions of rainfall for particular synoptic events to forecast day 3. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society