On the Sensitivity of Short-Term Climate Prediction to Initial Atmospheric Conditions

Abstract

Two different sets of ensemble hindcasting experiments were performed with a grid-point Atmospheric General Circulation Model (IAP9L2x2.5-AGCM) forced by actual observed and climatic surface sea temperature(SST), sea ice respectively for seventeen years(1988-2004).In each of set of experiment, there were three tests from three different initial atmospheric conditions . Then the sensitivity of short-term climate prediction to initial atmospheric conditions was investigated. A simple correlation analysis showed that the influence of initial atmospheric conditions in the tropics is greater than that in the extratropics , so initial atmospheric conditions play a very important role on short-term climate prediction, especially in China. In addition, the initial atmospheric conditions of smoothing 5-day NCEP-DOE reanalysis2 data were the best from most of meteorological variables in this study.