Climate Forecasting - lecture

Weather forecasts, which aim to predict specific conditions at a specific time, have little value at lead times longer than a few days due to the chaotic nature of the Earth's atmosphere. For longer ranges one must turn to climate forecasts, which instead predict the statistics of weather, for example probabilities that average conditions will be warmer or cooler than normal over the next month, season or decade.

Such forecasts rely on the premise that the natural wanderings of climate have a predictable component associated with relatively slowly varying phenomena such as El Nino-Southern Oscillation. (Across periods of about a decade or longer human influences must be taken into account as well.) This talk will describe efforts to develop a flexible climate forecasting system, applicable to forecast horizons ranging from less than a season to a decade or longer, based on CCCma's climate model. A key objective is to enhance Environment Canada's current operational climate forecasting capability.

Presented by Dr. Bill Merryfield, Cdn Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada