Constraining Projections Using Decadal Predictions

Abstract

There is increasing demand for robust, reliable, and actionable climate information for the next 1 to 50 years. This is challenging for the scientific community as the longest initialized predictions are limited to 10 years (decadal predictions). Thus, to provide seamless information for the upcoming 50 years, information from decadal predictions and uninitialized projections need to be merged. In this study, the ability to obtain valuable climate information beyond decadal time scales by constraining uninitialized projections using decadal predictions is assessed. The application of this framework to surface temperatures over the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre region, shows that the constrained uninitialized subensemble has higher skill compared to the overall projection ensemble also beyond 10 years when information from decadal predictions is no longer available. Though showing the potential of such a constraining approach to obtain climate information for the near-term future, its utility depends on the added value of initialization.