Annual Seminar 2019

The talk will discuss the development of ideas and capabilities over the past 50 years, and the phenomena and dynamics that give the potential for prediction.
The notion of chaos by Lorenz was originally conceived in the context of the long-range forecasting project in which he was employed at MIT. He was essentially showing that the project that employed him was hopeless! However, over the...

Operational forecasts valid beyond the two weeks period that was thought to be the limit of predictability in the 1960s/1970s, have been available since the 1990s. At ECMWF, for example, operational, ensemble-based seasonal forecasts have been issued since 1997, and a dedicated monthly ensemble have been in operation since 2004.
Progress in the past two decades in predictability gains have...

Teleconnections associated with ENSO variability have long been recognised as the major source of seasonal predictability for many regions in both the tropics and extratropics. However, in recent years the importance of teleconnections originated outside the "core" ENSO region have been increasingly recognised. On the seasonal scale, the ENSO teleconnections appear to be modulated by anomalies...