A Dynamic Statistical Subseasonal Forecast Model for OLR Over Tropical Pacific Region

Abstract

How to improve the subseasonal forecast skills of dynamic models has always been an important issue in atmospheric science and service. This study proposes a new dynamical-statistical forecast method and a stable components dynamic statistical forecast (STsDSF) for subseasonal outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) over the tropical Pacific region in January-February from 2004 to 2008. Compared with 11 advanced multi-model ensemble (MME) daily forecasts, the STsDSF model was able to capture the change characteristics of OLR better when the lead time was beyond 30 days in 2005 and 2006. The average pattern correlation coefficients (PCC) of STsDSF are 0.24 and 0.16 in 2005 and 2006, while MME is 0.10 and 0.05, respectively. In addition, the average value of PCC of the STsDSF model in five years is higher than MME in 7–11 pentads. Although both the STsDSF model and MME show a similar temporal correlation coefficient (TCC) pattern over the tropical Pacific region, the STsDSF model error grows more slowly than the MME error during 8–12 pentads in January 2005. This phenomenon demonstrates that STsDSF can reduce dynamical model error in some situations. According to the comparison of subseasonal forecasts between STsDSF and MME in five years, STsDSF model skill depends strictly on the predictability of the dynamical model. The STsDSF model shows some advantages when the dynamical model could not forecast well above a certain level. In this study, the STsDSF model can be used as an effective reference for subseasonal forecast and could feasibly be used in real-time forecast business in the future.