Abstract
The effect of increasing atmospheric resolution on prediction skill of El Niño southern oscillation phenomenon in climate forecast system model is explored in this paper. Improvement in prediction skill for sea surface temperature (SST) and winds at all leads compared to low resolution model in the tropical Indo-Pacific basin is observed. High resolution model is able to capture extreme events reasonably well. As a result, the signal to noise ratio is improved in the high resolution model. However, spring predictability barrier (SPB) for summer months in Nino 3 and Nino 3.4 region is stronger in high resolution model, in spite of improvement in overall prediction skill and dynamics everywhere else. Anomaly correlation coefficient of SST in high resolution model with observations in Nino 3.4 region targeting boreal summer months when predicted at lead times of 3–8 months in advance decreased compared its lower resolution counterpart. It is noted that higher variance of winds predicted in spring season over central equatorial Pacific compared to observed variance of winds results in stronger than normal response on subsurface ocean, hence increases SPB for boreal summer months in high resolution model.
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Acknowledgements
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is fully funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, New Delhi. First author would like to thank Mr. Siddharth Kumar for his help in editing final version of manuscript. Authors thank NCEP for making available CFS model output for analysis and for transferring the CFS system under the MoU among the Ministry of Earth Science (MoES), Govt. of India and NCEP. Authors thank NCAR for making available the NCL software. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. It helped a lot in improving the manuscript. All the data sources are duly acknowledged.
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Arora, A., Rao, S.A., Pillai, P. et al. Assessment of prediction skill in equatorial Pacific Ocean in high resolution model of CFS. Clim Dyn 51, 3389–3403 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4084-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4084-8