Journal article
Skillful decadal prediction of unforced Southern European summer temperature variations
- Abstract:
- We assess the capability of decadal prediction simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) archive to predict European summer temperature during the period 1970–2014. Using a multi-model ensemble average, we show that Southern European (SEU) summer temperatures are highly predictable for up to ten years in CMIP6. Much of this predictive skill, is related to the externally forced response: historical simulations explain about 90% of observed SEU summer temperature variance. Prediction skill for the unforced signal of SEU summer temperature is low: initialized model simulations explain less than 10% of observed variance after removing the externally forced response. An observed link between unforced SEU summer temperature and preceding spring Eastern North Atlantic—Mediterranean sea surface temperature (SST) motivates the application of a dynamical-statistical model to overcome the low summer temperature skill over Europe. This dynamical-statistical model uses dynamical spring SST predictions to predict European summer temperature, and significantly increases decadal prediction skill of unforced European summer temperature variations, showing significant prediction skill for unforced Southern European summer temperature 2–9 years ahead. As a result, dynamical-statistical models can benefit the decadal prediction of variables with initially limited skill beyond the forcing, such as summer temperature over Europe.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 3.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1088/1748-9326/ac20f5
Authors
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Journal:
- Environmental Research Letters More from this journal
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 10
- Article number:
- 104017
- Publication date:
- 2021-09-23
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-08-25
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1748-9326
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1194151
- Local pid:
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pubs:1194151
- Deposit date:
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2021-09-17
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Borchert et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- ©2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. As the Version of Record of this article is going to be/has been published on a gold open access basis under a CC BY 3.0 licence, this Accepted Manuscript is available for reuse under a CC BY 3.0 licence immediately. Although reasonable endeavours have been taken to obtain all necessary permissions from third parties to include their copyrighted content within this article, their full citation and copyright line may not be present in this Accepted Manuscript version. Before using any content from this article, please refer to the Version of Record on IOPscience once published for full citation and copyright details, as permission may be required.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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