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Experiments conducted under NOAA’s Climate Test Bed
Subseasonal Prediction with the NCEP-CFS:
Forecast Skill and Prediction Barriers for Tropical
Intraseasonal Oscillations
Augustin Vintzileos
and
Hua-Lu Pan
EMC/NCEP/NWS/NOAA
Messages to take back home…

The CFS is a useful tool in forecasting Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations
which are the basis for subseasonal prediction– its skill is similar to other
centers
 The reason for the drop in skill is found in the Maritime Continent which
presents a Barrier to the eastward propagation of the active convective
phase of the TIO
 Increasing the horizontal resolution of the atmospheric model has not
improved the skill of TIO forecast
 A better set of initial conditions is shown to be crucial for improving skill by
3-5 days. Both better quality and better compatibility with the forecast
model appears to be a factor
 Intraseasonal variations of oceanic initial states are not well represented
by GODAS. However, ocean – atmosphere coupling is quite important for
the TIO. It follows that inconsistencies between the ocean and atmospheric
initial state at this portion of the spectrum may damage the forecast
What is Subseasonal Forecasting?
The seamless forecasting suite: from Weather to Climate
Atmospheric initial
conditions
Forecast lead times
0-14 days
15-60 days
60 days and beyond
Land initial
conditions
Synoptic
Oceanic initial
conditions
Mainly affected by
Atmospheric I.C.
Weather
Subseasonal
Affected by all I.C.
TIO affecting
weather statistics
Seasonal-to-Interannual
Mainly affected by Oceanic I.C. but
also by land I.C. (e.g., snow cover,
soil moisture)
ENSO affecting
weather statistics
Issues concerning subseasonal forecasting:
• How critical are Initial Conditions?
• How critical is model resolution?
• How critical are model drifts and biases?
• What are the most adequate ensemble generation
techniques?
Answers to such questions will allow to prioritize development efforts
and thus optimize the operational tool
CPC Global Tropics Benefits/Hazards Assessment
Description: Week 1-2 outlooks for enhanced/suppressed rainfall and favorable/unfavorable conditions for
TC activity
Purpose: Provides regional planners with global interests advanced notice on potential hazards/impacts
Physical Basis: MJO, ENSO, other coherent and/or persistent anomalies, interaction with the extratropics
Outside Collaboration: ESRL, TPC, NWS WR/CR, and others
Tools: Detailed monitoring, ENSO/MJO composites, MJO objective forecasts (statistical/dynamical),
GFS/CFS forecasts
Plans: Product more objective in nature, evaluate and apply input associated with subseasonal variability
from additional dynamical models
See poster by Jon Gottschalck
The Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillation (TIO)
Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations: some points
to remember
•
TIO consists of large-scale coupled patterns in atmospheric circulation and
deep convection all propagating eastward slowly through the portion of the
Indian and Pacific oceans where the sea surface is warm. It constantly
interacts with the underlying ocean and influences many weather and climate
systems (from Zhang, 2005)
•
TIO are the scientific basis for subseasonal forecasting i.e., they are what
ENSO is to seasonal forecasting
•
No theoretical context yet
•
Comprehensive dynamical models do not represent them perfectly though
there is consensus that coupling with the ocean improves their simulation
•
Observations show that sometimes the MJO collapses to higher modes as it
crosses the Maritime Continent
Defining a metric for the TIO
• A CLIVAR-MJO panel recently made recommendations on a
number of metrics to use. One of these metrics combine winds
at 200 hPa and 850 hPa and precipitation i.e., represents the
coupling between the large scale circulation and diabatic
forcing.
• We have hindcasts from 2002 to 2006 i.e., a mostly quiet
period in regard to ENSO events. Nevertheless, in order to
avoid possible sampling issues for defining mean annual cycles
and drifts we only use the smoothest possible variable for
defining an index.
• We use zonal wind at 200 hPa averaged from 20°S-20°N and we
next show that for our purpose this is an adequate measure
Defining a metric for the TIO
The Recipe…
 Our
verifying fields will be from Reanalysis-2
Consider the zonal wind at 200 hPa from 2002 to 2006 averaged
between 20°S-20°N
 Compute and remove the mean annual cycle and the zonal mean
Perform and EOF analysis of the resulting field (no time filtering)
First and second EOFs of the zonal wind at 200 hPa
Indian
Atlantic
Pacific
EOF1
10 days
EOF2
r=0.6
-EOF1
A full oscillation in 40 days
-EOF2
Reconstructed U200 vs. GPCP Precipitation, May – July, 2002
Upper
level
diverg
ence
20S-20N averaged, filtered U200
anomaly field
5S-5N averaged, total unfiltered
precipitation field
Defining a metric for the TIO
The Recipe…
Projection of the observed and forecast U200 anomalies on the
two first EOFs isolates the TIO signal (no filtering in the time domain)

 Pattern correlation between the observed and forecast
projections
Some initial experimentation…
• Used the T126 version of the operational T62 CFS
• Hindcasts were run up to 65 days and were initialized four
times per day from CDAS2 and GODAS from May 7th to July
15th and from November 7th to January 15th from 2000 to
2004 (run by Saha, Vintzileos, Thiaw and Johanson )
The Maritime Continent Barrier
Pattern Correlation for initialization dates from May to June 2002
The Maritime Continent Predictability Barrier
June 6th-9th
June 6th-9th
June 6th-9th
Reconstructed U200 vs. GPCP Precipitation, May – July, 2002
June 8th
Upper
level
diverg
ence
20S-20N averaged, filtered U200
anomaly field
5S-5N averaged, total unfiltered
precipitation field
We designed a series of subseasonal
retrospective forecasts with the CFS for the
systematic study of the Maritime Continent
Barrier
(Proposed to and endorsed by the Climate Test Bed FY2007)
Retrospective forecast design:
May 23rd to August 11th from 2002 to 2006
1 forecast every 5 days, with additional re-forecasts at the beginning of each
month
Forecast lead: 60 days
Model resolution:
Atmosphere: T62
=
200Km x 200Km
T126 =
100Km x 100Km
T254 =
50Km x 50Km
Ocean: the standard CFS resolution
Initial conditions:
Atmosphere, Land: from Reanalysis 2 (CDAS2) and from GDAS
Ocean: from GODAS
Forecast skill for TIO as a function of
Resolution and Initial Conditions
Skill for the TIO mode (verification CDAS2)
Persistence
forecast
GDAS
Skill up to
14 – 18 days
CDAS2
Persistence
forecast
GDAS
T62
T126
T254
MJO forecast skill at ECMWF
0.4
Skill up to 14-18 days
From Vitart et al. 2007
Reasons for the drop in forecast skill:
The Maritime Continent Barrier
Reconstructed U200 vs. GPCP Precipitation, May – July, 2002
June 8th
Upper
level
diverg
ence
20S-20N averaged, filtered U200
anomaly field
5S-5N averaged, total unfiltered
precipitation field
Pattern correlation as a function of initialization day and lead time
When initialized
by GDAS the CFS
shows a somehow
better behavior
during the first
few days of the
forecast near the
barrier.
June 8th
June 8th
…and the Ocean?
• There is consensus that the ocean plays an
important role for the evolution of the TIO
• CFS is initialized by GODAS which in turn is
optimized for Seasonal-to-Interannual forecast
• GODAS:
– Comes in pentads
– Its SST is damped to the weekly Reynolds SST
– Contains information from 2 weeks before and two
weeks after
Standard Deviation of the 20-90 day filtered SST
2002 - 2006
2002 - 2006
With MOM3 we
use climatological
SST for the
majority of the
Maritime
continent. MOM4
alleviates this
issue
 As
suspected, energy in the subseasonal
portion of the spectrum is low in the GODAS
product
 What about the normalized variability
modes (more physical meaning for the Indian
Ocean than simple EOFs) ?
Is there any relevance between the
daily OI SST EOF modes and the TIO?
The TIO EOFs
Compare to the correlation between Principal
Component 1 and Principal Component 2 of the
daily OI SST and the anomalies of Zonal Wind at 200
hPa at each grid point
The TIO EOFs
There is remarkable resemblance between the U200 EOFs and the correlation of U200
anomalies and the SST Principal components
There is an empirical relationship between
the SST and the TIO suggesting that initial
states for the ocean and the atmosphere
should be coherent
Messages…

The CFS is a useful tool for forecasting Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations –
its skill is similar or better to other centers
 The reason for the drop in skill is found in the Maritime Continent which
presents a Barrier to the eastward propagation of the active convective
phase of the TIO
 Increasing the horizontal resolution of the atmospheric model has not
improved the skill of TIO forecast
 A better set of initial conditions is shown to be crucial for improving skill by
3-5 days. Both better quality and better compatibility with the forecast
model appear to be a factor
 Intraseasonal variations of oceanic initial states are not well represented
by GODAS. However, ocean – atmosphere coupling is quite important for
the TIO. It follows that inconsistencies between the ocean and atmospheric
initial state at this portion of the spectrum may damage the forecast
Conclusions
• We have shown that a set of atmospheric initial conditions which is
more realistic and which is more compatible with the forecast model
is crucial for TIO forecast. This underlines the importance of the new
reanalysis project carried out at NCEP.
• We have shown here that horizontal resolution is not critical for
forecast of the TIO. However there are areas (Sahel) were resolution
higher than T126 is beneficial. The next version of the CFS will be at
T126. Could downscaling from T126 provide results as good as the
ones obtained with a CFS at T254 in these areas?
• The role of oceanic initial conditions has not yet been explored. How
to improve the intraseasonal part of the ocean initial state?
Questions?
Number of strong summer TIO events during the period of hindcasts = 6
This is equivalent to 24-30 years of hindcasts for assessing
seasonal prediction skill
Initialization shocks
• The GDAS initial conditions are more compatible to
the CFS atmosphere than CDAS2
• This difference could result to a stronger initialization
shock when CFS is initialized by CDAS2
• We quantify the initialization shock by investigating
forecast skill for the mean annual cycle
Forecast skill for the mean annual cycle of U200
(verifying against CDAS2)
GDAS
T254
T126
T62
CDAS2
T254
T126
T62
As expected there is a stronger initialization shock when CFS is initialized by CDAS2 than
by GDAS. In fact bias correction improves the forecast skill of the TIO when the CFS is
initialized by CDAS2. However bias correction is not affecting the skill of the CFS when
initialized by GDAS (we obtain same results by removing the observed mean state).
Tropical Atlantic
August 2002: weak tropical activity
OBS
OBS
August 2005: very strong tropical activity
Zonal mean of U 200 hPa averaged from 20S to 20N
Associated with the tropical Easterly
Jet the mean Boreal Summer tropical
flow at 200 hPa is non-divergent
There is strong intraseasonal
variability of this quantity
during all seasons
Effects from removing the mean zonal signal
Standard Deviation of
the total signal
Maritime Continent and
Western Pacific
Standard Deviation of
the total minus the
zonal mean signal
Skill for the zonal mean u200 (verification CDAS2)
Persistence
Forecast
GDAS
T254
T126
T62
CDAS2
T254
T126
T62
CDAS2 vs. GDAS
• Older version of GFS at
T62L28
• Newer version of GFS at
T254L64 and T382L64
• This is a multi-year long
estimation of the
Atmospheric state obtained
with the same, albeit older,
model and same
assimilation methodologies
• This is the best available
estimation of the
Atmospheric state obtained
by the best model and
assimilation techniques
available each day
• Quality is time-invariant
• Quality improves with time
GDAS vs. GPCP vs. Reanalysis-2 for June 2002
GDAS Precipitable Water
GPCP Precipitation
Reanalysis 2 Precipitable
Water
drift
Time evolution of mean energy at wave
numbers 10-40 when CFS is initialized by
CDAS2 (red) or by GDAS (blue).