Improved skill for the anomaly correlation of geopotential heights at 500 hPa

Abstract

This paper addresses the anomaly correlation of the 500-hPa geopotential heights from a suite of global multimodels and from a model-weighted ensemble mean called the superensemble. This procedure follows a number of current studies on weather and seasonal climate forecasting that are being pursued. This study includes a slightly different procedure from that used in other current experimental forecasts for other variables. Here a superensemble for the ▽2 of the geopotential based on the daily forecasts of the geopotential fields at the 500-hPa level is constructed. The geopotential of the superensemble is recovered from the solution of the Poisson equation. This procedure appears to improve the skill for those scales where the variance of the geopotential is large and contributes to a marked improvement in the skill of the anomaly correlation. Especially large improvements over the Southern Hemisphere are noted. Consistent day-6 forecast skill above 0.80 is achieved on a day to day basis. The superensemble skills are higher than those of the best model and the ensemble mean. For days 1-6 the percent improvement in anomaly correlations of the superensemble over the best model are 0.3, 0.8, 2.25, 4.75, 8.6, and 14.6, respectively, for the Northern Hemisphere. The corresponding numbers for the Southern Hemisphere are 1.12, 1.66, 2.69, 4.48, 7.11, and 12.17. Major improvement of anomaly correlation skills is realized by the superensemble at days 5 and 6 of forecasts. The collective regional strengths of the member models, which is reflected in the proposed superensemble, provide a useful consensus product that may be useful for future operational guidance.