Northern and Southern Hemisphere seasonal variability of blocking frequency and predictability

Abstract

The main observational difference between blocking in the two hemispheres is in the number of preferred locations: Atlantic and Pacific blocking in the Northern Hemisphere, and only one broad region in the Southern Hemisphere, around 180° longitude. Forecasting the onset of blocking events is in general a task that the model finds difficult, whereas if the integration starts from an already blocked initial condition, the performance of the model is usually better. The poor observation data coverage in the Southern Hemisphere is likely to produce initial conditions affected by large errors, making the correct forecast of the onset of a blocking event an even more difficult task than it is in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, although the dynamical characteristics of Atlantic and Pacific blocks are inferred from the respective model errors to be different, their detrimental effects on forecast performance are similar in the two cases. -from Authors