Research Bridging Weather and Climate: The S2S Prediction Task Force

Closing the gap in the prediction skill and available forecast products that exists between the traditional weather and climate timescales requires organized consideration of various dynamical and statistical modeling issues. The S2S Prediction Task Force represents a coordination of experts in academia and U.S. agencies involved in S2S research as part of a three-year initiative by the NOAA Research Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program of the Climate Program Office. The talk will first provide a brief background on the S2S Prediction Task Force activities. These activities are aimed at understanding how the representation of tropical and extratropical phenomena, as well as phenomena at the surface, within the troposphere, and within the stratosphere, interact to influence S2S model predictions. The S2S Task Force has enabled collaborations that span several traditional atmospheric science communities and research results that blend weather and climate science approaches. The talk will highlight several of these research efforts considering the role of the stratosphere, tropical convection and model configuration in S2S forecasts of high-impact events.