Evaluation of Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System: seasonal hindcasts of the recent past climate.

Abstract:

Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System (CanSIPS) has been operationally active within the Meteorological Service of Canada since the year of 2011. This coupled (atmosphere-land-ocean) system is in charge of producing seasonal forecasts of near surface temperature and precipitation for the following 12 months with respect to the forecast onset. CanSIPS comprises two coupled atmosphere-land-ocean models: CanCM3 and CanCM4 developed in Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis. Each model produces ten-member ensemble forecasts which generate twenty member ensemble predictions. In this work we evaluate seasonal hindcasts of the recent past climate (1981-2010) simulated by the CanSIPS system. The importance of such evaluation stems from the fact that seasonal hindcasts can be used to calibrate the results of the seasonal predictions. Calibrated forecasts have in general more skill compared to the raw predictions. Moreover, verification of seasonal hindcasts enables an estimation of the expected performance of the prediction system over various regions and seasons (i.e. expected skill maps). Evaluation will be presented against reanalysis data. Near surface temperature and precipitation will be assessed over different geographical locations and various lead times.