A cautionary note on decadal sea level pressure predictions from GCMs

A comparison of sea level pressure(SLP)trends in a subset of seven Coupled Model Intercomparison Project(CMIP)phase 5 general circulation models(GCM),namely decadal simulations with CCSM4,CanCM4,MPI-ESM-LR,FGOALS-g2,MIROC4h,MIROC5,and MRICGCM3,to their CMIP3 counterparts reveals an unrealistically strong forecast skill in CMIP3 models for trend predictions for 2001e2011 when using the 1979e2000 period to train the forecast.Boreal-winter SLP trends over five high-,mid-,and low-latitude zones were calculated over the 1979e2000 initialization period for each ensemble member and then ranked based on their performance relative to HadSLP2 observations.The same method is used to rank the ensemble members during the 2001e2011 period.In CMIP3,17 out of 38 ensemble members retain their rank in the 2001e2011 hindcast period and 3 retain the neighboring rank.However,numbers are much lower in more recent CMIP5 decadal predictions over the similar 2001e2010 period when using the 1981e2000 period as initialization with the same number of ensembles.Different periods were used for CMIP3 and CMIP5 because although the 1979e2000 initialization is widely used for CMIP3,CMIP5 decadal predictions are only available for 30-year periods.The conclusion to consider the forecast skill in CMIP3 predictions during 2001e2011 as unrealistic is corroborated by comparisons to earlier periods from the 1960s to the 1980s in both CMIP3 and CMIP5 simulations.Thus,although the 2001e2011 CMIP3 predictions show statistically significant forecast skill,this skill should be treated as a spurious result that is unlikely to be reproduced by newer more accurate GCMs.

The Asymmetric Connection of SST in the Tasman Sea with Respect to the Opposite Phases of ENSO in Austral Summer

This study uses linear regression and composite analyses to identify a pronounced asymmetric connection of sea surface temperature(SST)in the Tasman Sea with the two opposite phases of El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation(ENSO)during austral summer.In El Ni?o years,the SST anomalies(SSTAs)in the Tasman Sea exhibit a dipolar pattern with weak warmth in the northwest and modest cooling in the southeast,while during La Ni?a years the SSTAs exhibit a basin-scale warmth with greater amplitude.Investigations into the underlying mechanism suggest that this asymmetry arises from a mechanism related to oceanic heat transport,specifically the anomalous Ekman meridional heat transport induced by the zonal wind stress anomalies,rather than the surface heat fluxes on the air-sea interface.Further analysis reveals that the asymmetry of oceanic heat transport between El Ni?o and La Ni?a years is driven by the asymmetric atmospheric circulation over the Tasman Sea stimulated by the asymmetric diabatic heating in the tropical Pacific between the two opposite ENSO phases.