Strategies for Subseasonal to Seasonal Forecasts
The National Academy of
SCIENCE - ENGINEERING - MEDICINE
Just with Paypal
Book Details
Price
|
3.00 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 351 p |
File Size
|
15,838 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN-13 ISBN-10
| 978-0-309-38880-1 0-309-38880-5 |
Copyright©
| 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences |
ADVANCE SUBSEASONAL TO SEASONAL FORECASTING
RAYMOND J. BAN (Chair), Ban and Associates, LLC, Marietta, GA
CECILIA M. BITZ, University of Washington, Seattle
ANDY BROWN, UK Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, UK
ERIC CHASSIGNET, Florida State University, Tallahassee
JOHN A. DUTTON, Prescient Weather Ltd., State College, PA
ROBERT HALLBERG, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ
ANKE KAMRATH, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
DARYL KLEIST, University of Maryland, College Park
PIERRE F.J. LERMUSIAUX, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
HAI LIN, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Dorval, Quebec
LAURA MYERS, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
JULIE PULLEN, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ
SCOTT SANDGATHE, University of Washington, Seattle
MARK SHAFER, University of Oklahoma, Norman
DUANE WALISER, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
CHIDONG ZHANG, University of Miami, FL
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
EDWARD DUNLEA, Senior Program Officer
CLAUDIA MENGELT, Senior Program Officer
ALISON MACALADY, Associate Program Officer
SHELLY FREELAND, Financial Associate
ROB GREENWAY, Program Associate
BOARD ON ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES AND CLIMATE
A.R. RAVISHANKARA (Chair), Colorado State University, Fort Collins
GERALD A. MEEHL (Vice Chair), National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
LANCE F. BOSART, University at Albany-SUNY, NY
MARK A. CANE, Columbia University, Palisades, NY
SHUYI S. CHEN, University of Miami, FL
HEIDI CULLEN, Climate Central, Princeton, NJ
PAMELA EMCH, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Redondo Beach, CA
ARLENE FIORE, Columbia University, Palisades, NY
WILLIAM B. GAIL, Global Weather Corporation, Boulder, CO
LISA GODDARD, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
MAURA HAGAN, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
TERRI S. HOGUE, Colorado School of Mines, Golden
ANTHONY JANETOS, Joint Global Change Research Institute, College Park, MD
EVERETTE JOSEPH, University at Albany-SUNY, NY
RONALD “NICK” KEENER, JR., Duke Energy Corporation, Charlotte, NC
JOHN R. NORDGREN, The Climate Resilience Fund, Bainbridge Island, WA
JONATHAN OVERPECK, University of Arizona, Tucson
ARISTIDES A.N. PATRINOS, New York University, Brooklyn
S.T. RAO, North Carolina State University, Raleigh
DAVID A. ROBINSON, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway
CLAUDIA TEBALDI, Climate Central, Princeton, NJ
Ocean Studies Board Liaison
DAVID HALPERN, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Polar Research Board Liaison
JENNIFER FRANCIS, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Marion, MA
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
AMANDA STAUDT, Director
EDWARD DUNLEA, Senior Program Officer
LAURIE GELLER, Program Director
KATHERINE THOMAS, Program Officer
LAUREN EVERETT, Program Officer
ALISON MACALADY, Associate Program Officer
AMANDA PURCELL, Associate Program Officer
ALEX MORGAN, Christine Mirzayan Fellow
RITA GASKINS, Administrative Coordinator
ROB GREENWAY, Program Associate
SHELLY FREELAND, Financial Associate
MICHAEL HUDSON, Senior Program Assistant
ERIN MARKOVICH, Program Assistant
OCEAN STUDIES BOARD
LARRY A. MAYER (Chair), University of New Hampshire, Durham
E. VIRGINIA ARMBRUST, University of Washington, Seattle
KEVIN R. ARRIGO, Stanford University, CA
CLAUDIA BENITEZ-NELSON, University of South Carolina, Columbia
RITA R. COLWELL, University of Maryland, College Park
SARAH W. COOKSEY, State of Delaware, Dover
CORTIS K. COOPER, Chevron Corporation, San Ramon, CA
JAMES A. ESTES, University of California, Santa Cruz
DAVID HALPERN, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
PATRICK HEIMBACH, University of Texas, Austin
SUSAN E. HUMPHRIS, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
BONNIE J. MCCAY, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
S. BRADLEY MORAN, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
STEVEN A. MURAWSKI, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
JOHN A. ORCUTT, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
H. TUBA ÖZKAN-HALLER, Oregon State University, Corvallis
MARTIN D. SMITH, Duke University, Durham, NC
MARGARET SPRING, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA
DON WALSH, International Maritime Incorporated, Myrtle Point, OR
DOUGLAS WARTZOK, Florida International University, Miami
LISA D. WHITE, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University
ROBERT S. WINOKUR, Michigan Tech Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
SUSAN ROBERTS, Director
CLAUDIA MENGELT, Senior Program Officer
STACEE KARRAS, Associate Program Officer
PAMELA LEWIS, Administrative Coordinator
PAYTON KULINA, Senior Program Assistant
SHUBHA BANSKOTA, Financial Associate
HEATHER COLEMAN, Postdoctoral Fellow
Preface
Today, millions of people tune to their favorite TV meteorologist or check the newspaper
or their smart phones to get the latest weather forecast. Knowing what the
weather will likely be for the next few hours and the next several days has opened
up incredible opportunities for society as a whole—for individuals making decisions
about what they will do in their daily lives, for industry undertaking risk management
activities, and for governments making critical life and property protection decisions.
What if there were similar uses of forecasts for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or even 3 or 6 months
from now? It is easy to envision the potential value of high-quality predictions
2 weeks to 12 months ahead for any number of industries—for example, energy,
water resource
management, and agriculture. There are undoubtedly potential benefits
for other sectors that we cannot even imagine today. Even if such information
never matches the level of confidence associated with tomorrow’s weather forecast,
it could still be used by individuals, businesses, and governments to plan and make a
large array of important decisions. In this study, the committee puts forward a vision
that subseasonal to seasonal forecasts (S2S) (i.e., forecasts of environmental conditions
made approximately 2 weeks to 12 months in advance) will be as widely used
a decade from now as weather forecasts are today. The path to realizing this vision
and its inherent value will require focused effort on S2S processes and predictions by
both physical and social scientists. Today, this type of commitment largely exists on
the weather timescale and on the scales in which climate change is expected. S2S falls
in a “gap” between these two areas, and in general, has not received the same level of
dedicated effort and support. This report presents research strategies for dealing with
this “in-between” space over the next decade.
Although the overall quality and use of products in the S2S time frame have been
growing over the past decade, increasing the predictive skill of coupled Earth system
models in S2S forecast ranges will be essential to increasing the benefits for and expanding
the number of end users of these products. The benefits of S2S forecasts will
be further enhanced if the scope of operational S2S forecasts were extended beyond
the traditional weather variables to include more Earth system variables and events.
Opportunities for improvements and expansions to existing forecasts include, for example,
enhanced predictions of the ocean state, sea ice fields, aerosols and air quality,
and water management. A focus on developing better information on the likelihood
of specific and disruptive environmental events, in addition to improving the skill of
currently available forecasts of temperature and precipitation anomalies, has great
potential to further enhance the value of S2S predictions.
This report presents a research agenda that provides the framework for the physical
and social sciences communities to collaboratively advance the skill, breadth, and
value of S2S predictions. The committee held five in-person meetings between October
2014 and May 2015, and received broad and diverse input from experts in both
physical and social sciences as well as from end users of S2S forecasts. We would like
to thank all of those who provided their time and insight. The contributors are listed in
the Acknowledgments section above. The committee is also greatly indebted to Study
Directors Edward Dunlea and Claudia Mengelt and to Associate Program Officer Alison
Macalady. This report would not have been possible without their tireless efforts and
expert support. Finally, I would like to thank the committee members for their hard
work and dedication to excellence. I particularly want to thank the committee for their
patience with me as I learned so much from them. It was indeed a true pleasure to
work with this talented group of professionals.
Raymond J. Ban, Chair
Committee on Developing a U.S. Research Agenda to
Advance Subseasonal to Seasonal Forecasting
Table of Contents
SUMMARY 1
Vision and Research Strategies for the Next Decade, 3
Recommended Elements of a Research Agenda, 3
Conclusion, 14
1 INTRODUCTION 17
Motivation for This Study, 18
The Report Roadmap, 22
2 HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS OF S2S FORECASTING 25
Evolution of the Forecast Enterprise, 25
Current Status of Activities and Recent Progress, 30
3 ENHANCING THE VALUE AND BENEFITS OF S2S FORECASTS 43
The Potential Value of S2S Forecasts to Decision-Makers, 44
Challenges to the Use of S2S Predictions, 54
Improving the Usability and Use of S2S Forecasts, 60
Case Studies With Example Applications of S2S Forecasts, 65
The Way Forward for Realizing the Potential of S2S Predictions, 78
4 SOURCES OF SUBSEASONAL TO SEASONAL PREDICTABILITY 83
Introduction, 83
Defining Predictability, 86
Predictibility Research, 87
Sources of Predictibility, 91
The Way Forward for Research on Sources of Predictability, 112
5 S2S FORECAST SYSTEMS: CAPABILITIES, GAPS, AND POTENTIAL 117
Routine Observations and Their Use, 120
Data Assimilation, 146
Models, 163
Combination, Calibration, Verification, and Optimization of S2S Forecast
Systems, 194
6 INTERFACE BETWEEN RESEARCH AND OPERATIONS 207
Current Activities at the Interface of S2S Research and Operations, 208
Challenges in Research to Operations and Operations to Research, 212
Way Forward for Research to Operations, 214
7 CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE AND WORKFORCE CAPACITY BUILDING 223
Building Capacity for S2S Cyberinfrastructure, 223
Building Capacity in the S2S Modeling and Prediction Workforce, 233
8 VISION AND WAY FORWARD FOR S2S EARTH SYSTEM PREDICTION 239
Vision for the Next Decade, 239
S2S Research Strategies and Recommendations, 241
Conclusion, 268
ACRONYM LIST 279
REFERENCES 285
APPENDIXES
A Committee’s Statement of Task 317
B Details of Seasonal and Subseasonal Forecast Systems 319
Examples of Models Used by Operational Centers for Subseasonal and
Seasonal Forecasting 319
C Past, Current, and Planned Major International Process Studies 323
Past Process Studies, 323
Current and Future Process Studies, 326
D Biographical Sketches of Committee Members 329
Screenbook
....
Printed in the United States of America
Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016.
Next Generation Earth System Prediction: Strategies for Subseasonal to Seasonal Forecasts.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21873.