Seasonal to Decadal Predictions With MIROC6: Description and Basic Evaluation

• Published in: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
• Main Authors: Takahito Kataoka, Hiroaki Tatebe, Hiroshi Koyama, Takashi Mochizuki, Koji Ogochi, Hiroaki Naoe, Yukiko Imada, Hideo Shiogama, Masahide Kimoto, Masahiro Watanabe
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2020
• Subjects: decadal prediction; seasonal prediction; dynamical coupled climate model; CMIP6; initialization; Physical geography; GB3-5030; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Pacific; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS002035; https://doaj.org/article/8d744ad7c3f243658c494bfec119b38b

Abstract The present paper presents results of seasonal‐to‐decadal climate predictions based on a coupled climate model called the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 6 (MIROC6) contributing to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). MIROC6 is initialized every year for 1960–2018 by assimilating observed ocean temperature and salinity anomalies and full fields of sea ice concentration and by prescribing atmospheric initial states from reanalysis data. The impacts of updating the system on prediction skill are then evaluated by comparing hindcast experiments between the MIROC6 prediction system and a previous system based on MIROC version 5 (MIROC5). Skill of seasonal prediction is overall improved in association with representation and initialization of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation (QBO), and the Northern Hemisphere sea ice concentration in MIROC6. In particular, the QBO is skillfully predicted up to 3 years ahead with a maximum anomaly correlation exceeding r = 0.8. The prediction skill for the North Atlantic Oscillation in winter is also enhanced, but the prediction still suffers from model's inherent errors. On decadal timescales, MIROC6 has a larger fraction of areas of the globe with better surface temperature skill at all lead times than MIROC5, and it has predictive skill in the annual‐mean sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and the Pacific. In particular, MIROC6 hindcasts at 2–5 years lead time are able to capture the spatial structure of SST changes in the North Pacific and the eastern tropical Pacific associated with the 1970s regime shift better than MIROC5 hindcasts.