Predictions of ENSO with a Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
基于海气耦合环流模式的ENSO预测

Predictions of ENSO are described by using a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model. The initial conditions are created by forcing the coupled system using SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific at the background of the coupled model climatology. A series of 24-month hindcasts for the period from November 1981 to December 1997 are carried out to validate the performance of the coupled system. Corre-lations of SST anomalies in the Nino3 region exceed 0.54 up to 15 months in advance and the rms errors are less than 0.9°C. The system is more skillful in predicting SST anomalies in the 1980s and less in the 1990s. The model skills are also seasonal-dependent, which are lower for the predictions starting from late autumn to winter and higher for those from spring to autumn in a year-time forecast length. The prediction, begin-ning from March, persists 8 months long with the correlation skill exceeding 0.6, which is important in pre-dictions of summer rainfall in China. The predictions are succesful in many aspects for the 1997–2000 ENSO events. This Project is Supported by Key Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences KZCX2-203, National Key Program for Developing Basic Sciences G1999032801, and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 49735160 and 40005007)