Sea Surface Temperature Predictions in NCEP CFSv2 Using a Simple Ocean Initialization Scheme

AbstractIn contrast to operational climate predictions based on sophisticated ocean data assimilation schemes at the National Centers for Environmental Predictions (NCEP), this study applied a simple ocean initialization scheme to the NCEP latest seasonal prediction model, the Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2). In the scheme, sea surface temperature (SST) was the only observed information applied to derive ocean initial states. The physical basis for the method is that, through air–sea coupling, SST is capable of reproducing some observed features of ocean evolutions by forcing the atmospheric winds. SST predictions based on the scheme are compared against hindcasts from the National (lately North American) Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) project.It was found that due to substantial biases in the tropical eastern Pacific in the ocean initial conditions produced by SST assimilation, ENSO SST predictions were not as good as those with sophisticated initialization schemes (e.g., hindcasts in the NMME pro...

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