final_program_abstracts[1]

11 IMSC Session Program
Developing statistical climate forecasts for the coming
decade
Wednesday - Parallel Session 11
Ed Hawkins 1 , A. N. Other 1 , Len Shaffrey 1 and Fiona Underwood 2
1
NCAS - Climate, University of Reading, Reading, UK
2 Department of Applied Statistics, University of Reading, Reading, UK
Predicting the climate on regional scales for the coming decade would be of
considerable value to a wide range of decision makers. Two main factors influence
the climate of the next decade; firstly, the continuing response of the climate system
to greenhouse gas emissions and other external factors such as volcanoes and solar
activity, and secondly, natural fluctuations in the ocean which can offset, or enhance,
anthropogenic changes for a decade or two.
Until recently, climate models were only used to predict the externally forced
component. However, there is now a major international effort underway to add
information about the present state of the ocean into climate models in order to
consider both factors and hence improve predictions – so called ‘decadal prediction’.
Initial results from global climate models (GCMs) are encouraging, but it is essential
to critically assess prediction skill to determine their ability to inform decision
makers, especially given the decadal prediction multi-model intercomparison
(CMIP5) planned for the next IPCC assessment report (AR5). We propose to provide
a benchmark against which to measure decadal prediction skill, and future progress,
by assessing the ability of simple statistical models to retrospectively predict climate,
with a particular focus on historical sea surface temperature (SST) observations of the
Atlantic Ocean and the separation of the forced trend from the residual internal
variability. The latest results will be discussed.
Abstracts 195