J6.7
The impact of soil moisture initialization on seasonal precipitation forecasts
Randal D. Koster, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD; and M. J. Suarez and L. Tyahla
Some studies suggest that the proper initialization of soil moisture in a forecasting model may contribute significantly to the accurate prediction of seasonal precipitation, especially during summer over midlatitude continents. In order for the initialization to have any impact at all, however, two conditions must be satisfied: (1) the initial soil moisture anomaly must be "remembered" into the forecasted season, and (2) the atmosphere must respond in a predictable way to the soil moisture anomaly. In our previous studies, we identified the key land surface and atmospheric properties needed to satisfy each condition. Here, we tie these studies together with an analysis of an ensemble of seasonal forecasts. Initial soil moisture conditions for the forecasts are established by forcing the land surface model with realistic precipitation prior to the start of the forecast period. As expected, the impacts on forecasted precipitation (relative to an ensemble of runs that do not utilize soil moisture information) tend to be localized over the small fraction of the earth with all of the required land and atmosphere properties.
Joint Session 6, Surface/Atmosphere Interactions Part I: (Joint between 13th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations and 16th Conference on Hydrology)
Wednesday, 16 January 2002, 1:30 PM-4:44 PM
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