We conducted this study to assess the potential predictability of the tropical climate system on seasonal-to-interannual time scales. We focus on different features between the monsoon climate and its Pacific counterpart as well as the differences among the various regional climate subsystems including the monsoons in Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Africa. The study is based on the 17-year,9-ensemble experiments with the NASA/GSFC GEOS-2 general circulation model.
The forced and internal parts of the variability of tropical climate have been clearly distinguished from each other. While the forced variability is potentially predictable, the internal variance is characterized by chaotic nature. Results indicate that the central-eastern Pacific climate is highly predictable but the predictability of monsoons is generally low. Compared with other regional monsoons, the impact of atmospheric internal dynamics
is more important in the Asian monsoon. However, the Asian summer monsoon demonstrates enhanced predictability during most of the El Nino and La Nina years when large-scale sea surface temperature forcing is strong