Seasonal Prediction of Tropical Cyclone Threat: An Earth System Prediction Capability Demonstration

Tropical cyclones (TCs) represent one of the most destructive natural hazards to human livelihood and have significant impact on military operations and planning. Predicting TC threat at seasonal and sub-seasonal timescales, including genesis, track distribution, range of intensities, and landfalling events, is critical for policy makers and resource managers in preparation for disaster mitigation and energy distribution. Seasonal TC activities are influenced significantly by phenomena such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) with a period of 1-2 months, and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with period of 3 to 7 years. The success of simulating and predicting TC activity and impacts depends critically on the ability to represent these multi-scale interactions and serves as a good metric for assessing sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction capability for the atmosphere.

The Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC) is a newly formed National collaboration responding to the Nation's emerging need to develop a seamless prediction capability from 0 hours to decadal timescales. ESPC has a goal to bridge the gap between weather and climate time scales by developing a fully coupled sea floor to space system addressing sub-seasonal to seasonal predictive capability. The interim scientific steering group of ESPC identified five capability demonstrations deemed critical to successfully reaching an initial operation capability by 2018. The dependence of TC activities on a wide range of environmental factors presents itself as an ideal proxy for evaluating the predictive capability of a seamless weather-climate system, and is chosen to be one of the five ESPC demonstrations. The demonstration goals, potential participants, challenges and opportunities will be presented.