The role of the stratosphere in subseasonal to seasonal prediction part II: predictability arising from stratosphere ‐ troposphere coupling

Domeisen, D. I. V., Butler, A. H., Charlton-Perez, A. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8179-6220, Ayarzagüena, B., Baldwin, M. P., Dunn‐Sigouin, E., Furtado, J. C., Garfinkel, C. I., Hitchcock, P., Karpechko, A. Y., Kim, H., Knight, J., Lang, A. L., Lim, E.‐P., Marshall, A., Roff, G., Schwartz, C., Simpson, I. R., Son, S.‐W. and Taguchi, M. (2020) The role of the stratosphere in subseasonal to seasonal prediction part II: predictability arising from stratosphere ‐ troposphere coupling. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 125 (2). e2019JD030923. ISSN 2169-8996 doi: 10.1029/2019jd030923

Abstract/Summary

The stratosphere can have a signi_cant impact on winter surface weather on subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales. This study evaluates the ability of current operational S2S prediction systems to capture two important links between the stratosphere and tropo sphere: (1) changes in probabilistic prediction skill in the extratropical stratosphere by precursors in the tropics and the extratropical troposphere and (2) changes in surface predictability in the extratropics after stratospheric weak and strong vortex events. Prob abilistic skill exists for stratospheric events when including extratropical tropospheric precursors over the North Paci_c and Eurasia, though only a limited set of models captures the Eurasian precursors. Tropical teleconnections such as the Madden‐Julian Oscillation, the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation, and El Nin~o Southern Oscillation increase the probabilistic skill of the polar vortex strength, though these are only captured by a limited set of models. At the surface, predictability is increased over the USA, Russia, and the Middle East for weak vortex events, but not for Europe, and the change in predictability is smaller for strong vortex events for all prediction systems. Prediction systems with poorly resolved stratospheric processes represent this skill to a lesser degree. Altogether, the analyses indicate that correctly simulating stratospheric variability and stratosphere‐troposphere dynamical coupling are critical elements for skillful S2S wintertime predictions.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/87609
Identification Number/DOI	10.1029/2019jd030923
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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