J12.1
Progress and Challenges in Subseasonal Prediction
Siegfried Schubert, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
While substantial advances have occurred over the last few decades in both weather and seasonal prediction, progress in improving predictions on subseasonal time scales (approximately 2 weeks to 2 months) has been slow. In this talk I will highlight some of the recent progress that has been made to improve forecasts on subseasonal time scales and outline the challenges that we face both from an observational and modeling prespective. The talk will be based primarily on the results and conclusions of a recent NASA-sponsored workshop that focused on the subseasonal prediction problem. One of the key conclusions of that workshop was that there is compelling evidence for predictability at forecast lead times substantially longer than two weeks, and that much of that predictability is currently untapped. Tropical diabatic heating and soil wetness were singled out as particularly important processes affecting predictability on these time scales. Predictability was also linked to various low-frequency atmospheric phenomena such as the annular modes in high latitudes (including their connections to the stratosphere), the Pacific/North American pattern, and the Madden-Julian Osciallion. I will end the talk by summarizing the recommendations and plans that have been put forward for accelerating progress on the subseaosnal prediction problem. .
Joint Session 12, Subseasonal forecasting (Joint with 15th Symp. on Global Change and Climate Variations and the Symp on Forecasting the Weathe and Climate of the Atmosphere and Ocean; Room 6C)
Tuesday, 13 January 2004, 8:30 AM-5:30 PM, Room 6C
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