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Real-time multi-model decadal climate predictions

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Abstract

We present the first climate prediction of the coming decade made with multiple models, initialized with prior observations. This prediction accrues from an international activity to exchange decadal predictions in near real-time, in order to assess differences and similarities, provide a consensus view to prevent over-confidence in forecasts from any single model, and establish current collective capability. We stress that the forecast is experimental, since the skill of the multi-model system is as yet unknown. Nevertheless, the forecast systems used here are based on models that have undergone rigorous evaluation and individually have been evaluated for forecast skill. Moreover, it is important to publish forecasts to enable open evaluation, and to provide a focus on climate change in the coming decade. Initialized forecasts of the year 2011 agree well with observations, with a pattern correlation of 0.62 compared to 0.31 for uninitialized projections. In particular, the forecast correctly predicted La Niña in the Pacific, and warm conditions in the north Atlantic and USA. A similar pattern is predicted for 2012 but with a weaker La Niña. Indices of Atlantic multi-decadal variability and Pacific decadal variability show no signal beyond climatology after 2015, while temperature in the Niño3 region is predicted to warm slightly by about 0.5 °C over the coming decade. However, uncertainties are large for individual years and initialization has little impact beyond the first 4 years in most regions. Relative to uninitialized forecasts, initialized forecasts are significantly warmer in the north Atlantic sub-polar gyre and cooler in the north Pacific throughout the decade. They are also significantly cooler in the global average and over most land and ocean regions out to several years ahead. However, in the absence of volcanic eruptions, global temperature is predicted to continue to rise, with each year from 2013 onwards having a 50 % chance of exceeding the current observed record. Verification of these forecasts will provide an important opportunity to test the performance of models and our understanding and knowledge of the drivers of climate change.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the joint DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101), and the EU FP7 THOR and COMBINE projects. MPI work was supported by the BMBF Nordatlantik and MiKlip projects. Ben Kirtman was supported by NOAA grants NA10OAR4320143 and NA10OAR4310203. IC3 work was supported by the EU-funded QWeCI (FP7-ENV-2009-1-243964) and CLIM-RUN projects (FP7-ENV-2010-265192), the MICINN-funded RUCSS (CGL2010-20657) projects and the Catalan Government. The IC3 authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources, technical expertise and assistance provided by the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) under the special project SPESICCF, and Muhammad Asif for his invaluable support in running the experiments. NASA supported J. Lean. MIROC work was supported by the KAKUSHIN program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan. The Earth Simulator of JAMSTEC was employed to perform MIROC experiments. MRI work was supported by the Japan Meteorological Agency research program and partly by the KAKUSHIN Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

    Doug M. Smith, Adam A. Scaife & Leon Hermanson

  2. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada, Victoria, BC, Canada

    George J. Boer, Viatcheslav Kharin & William J. Merryfield

  3. Rossby Centre, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, 60176, Norrköping, Sweden

    Mihaela Caian & Klaus Wyser

  4. Institut Català de Ciències del Clima, Carrer del Doctor Trueta, 203, 08005, Barcelona, Spain

    Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes & Virginie Guemas

  5. NCAS-Climate, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    Ed Hawkins & Chun Kit Ho

  6. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, The Netherlands

    Wilco Hazeleger & Bert Wouters

  7. Meteorological Research Institute, Japan Meteorological Agency, Tsukuba, 305-0052, Japan

    Masayoshi Ishii

  8. Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, 277-8568, Japan

    Masahide Kimoto

  9. RSMAS/MPO, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL, 33149, USA

    Ben Kirtman

  10. Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, 20375, USA

    Judith Lean

  11. Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Bundesstraße 53, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Daniela Matei, Wolfgang A. Müller & Holger Pohlmann

  12. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Anthony Rosati

  13. Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Wilco Hazeleger

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  1. Doug M. Smith
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  2. Adam A. Scaife
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  11. Masayoshi Ishii
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  13. Masahide Kimoto
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  14. Ben Kirtman
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  15. Judith Lean
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Correspondence to Doug M. Smith.

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Smith, D.M., Scaife, A.A., Boer, G.J. et al. Real-time multi-model decadal climate predictions. Clim Dyn 41, 2875–2888 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1600-0

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