Reflections on Jerry Meehl's Contributions to Understanding and Predicting Decadal Climate Variability

On the timescale of a few years to a few decades ahead, regional and seasonal variations in weather patterns and climate, and their corresponding impacts, will be strongly influenced by natural variability. Decision makers in diverse arenas thus need to know the extent to which the climate events they are seeing are the product of this natural variability, and hence can be expected to reverse at some point, or are the result of potentially irreversible, forced anthropogenic climate change. Throughout his career, Jerry Meehl has made pioneering contributions to our understanding of decadal climate variability and its predictability, as well as long-term anthropogenic change and the interplay between them. In this presentation, I will highlight some of his most notable research accomplishments in these areas, and I will comment on the prospects for more skillful decadal predictions moving forward.