Impact of initialization strategies and observations on seasonal forecast skill

Abstract

Seasonal forecasting is a rapidly developing field with considerable effort devoted to developing comprehensive coupled general circulation models. Initialising these models is also important, as the forecast skill depends strongly on the way the coupled model is initialised. Three commonly used strategies are evaluated using the ECMWF System3, a state of the art coupled model. The most skillful scheme is that which makes most use of atmospheric and oceanic data even though this may generate initial imbalances in the coupled state. At seasonal time scales, increasing the balance at the cost of being further from the observations can degrade the forecasts. The relative importance of different components of the ocean observing system, equatorial moorings, altimetery and Argo floats, on forecast skill is assessed.