ENSEMBLES: a new multi-model ensemble for seasonal-to-annual predictions: Skill and progress beyond DEMETER in forecasting tropical Pacific SSTs

A new 46-year hindcast dataset for seasonal-to-annual ensemble predictions has been created using a multi-model ensemble of 5 state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere-ocean circulation models. The multi-model outperforms any of the single-models in forecasting tropical Pacific SSTs because of reduced RMS errors and enhanced ensemble dispersion at all lead-times. Systematic errors are considerably reduced over the previous generation (DEMETER). Probabilistic skill scores show higher skill for the new multi-model ensemble than for DEMETER in the 4–6 month forecast range. However, substantially improved models would be required to achieve strongly statistical significant skill increases. The combination of ENSEMBLES and DEMETER into a grand multi-model ensemble does not improve the forecast skill further. Annual-range hindcasts show anomaly correlation skill of ∼0.5 up to 14 months ahead. A wide range of output from the multi-model simulations is becoming publicly available and the international community is invited to explore the full scientific potential of these data

Geometric Multi-Model Fitting by Deep Reinforcement Learning

This paper deals with the geometric multi-model fitting from noisy, unstructured point set data (e.g., laser scanned point clouds). We formulate multi-model fitting problem as a sequential decision making process. We then use a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to learn the optimal decisions towards the best fitting result. In this paper, we have compared our method against the state-of-the-art on simulated data. The results demonstrated that our approach significantly reduced the number of fitting iterations

Multi-model assessment of the impact of soil moisture initialization on mid-latitude summer predictability

Land surface initial conditions have been recognized as a potential source of predictability in sub-seasonal to seasonal forecast systems, at least for near-surface air temperature prediction over the mid-latitude continents. Yet, few studies have systematically explored such an influence over a sufficient hindcast period and in a multi-model framework to produce a robust quantitative assessment. Here, a dedicated set of twin experiments has been carried out with boreal summer retrospective forecasts over the 1992–2010 period performed by five different global coupled ocean–atmosphere models. The impact of a realistic versus climatological soil moisture initialization is assessed in two regions with high potential previously identified as hotspots of land–atmosphere coupling, namely the North American Great Plains and South-Eastern Europe. Over the latter region, temperature predictions show a significant improvement, especially over the Balkans. Forecast systems better simulate the warmest summers if they follow pronounced dry initial anomalies. It is hypothesized that models manage to capture a positive feedback between high temperature and low soil moisture content prone to dominate over other processes during the warmest summers in this region. Over the Great Plains, however, improving the soil moisture initialization does not lead to any robust gain of forecast quality for near-surface temperature. It is suggested that models biases prevent the forecast systems from making the most of the improved initial conditions.The authors thank Jeff Knight (Met Office Hadley Centre) for his constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) SPECS project (Grant Agreement Number 308378) and H2020 Framework Programme IMPREX project (Grant Agreement Number 641811). Constantin Ardilouze was also supported by the BSC Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Programme.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft