92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Thursday, 26 January 2012: 8:30 AM
Performance of the NCEP CFSv2 At Subseasonal, Seasonal, Decadal and Centennial Timescales
Room 355 (New Orleans Convention Center )
Suranjana Saha, EMC, Camp Springs, MD

NCEP has recently developed a new Climate Forecast System, CFSv2. The system became operational in March 2011. Ostensibly, CFSv2 was developed for seasonal prediction, out to a year at the most. However, for the first time, a model at NCEP contains changing CO2 content as well as aerosol and solar variations, both prescribed for past situations from observations and projected for real time predictions and projections. Retrospective forecasts have been made with the CFSv2 over the period 1982-2010 to gauge skill in its seasonal forecasts. Additional retrospective forecasts have also been made systematically with the CFSv2 for 1999-2010 to document skill in the subseasonal range of week 3 to 6, i.e. the Madden Julian Oscillation. A large number of decadal predictions have also been made with the CFSv2, following the IPCC CMIP5/AR5 protocol. Finally, a few multi-century runs have been made with the CFSv2, to study its behavior as a climate model. All time scales will be discussed and the skill of MJO and seasonal forecasts, as well as diagnostics from the decadal and centennial runs will be presented.

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