Abstract:
Based on observations of surface air temperature and precipitation and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) atmospheric reanalysis data, the prediction of East Asian summer climate during 1959—2016 conducted by the Large Ensemble CESM (Community Earth System Model) Initialized Decadal Prediction (CESM-DPLE) Project is evaluated in this study. The results show that the CESM-DPLE can reasonably capture the basic East Asian summer climate features and associated main atmospheric circulation patterns. In general, the prediction skill is high for surface air temperature but the CESM-DPLE shows almost no skill for precipitation prediction on interannual time scale. The CESM-DPLE can well reproduce the anomalies of mid- and high-latitude atmospheric circulations and the East Asian monsoon and climate caused by the teleconnection wave trains driven by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). After the AMO transition into the warm phase since the late 1990s, geopotential height decreased and monsoon in East Asia enhanced via teleconnection wave train during summer, leading to excessive precipitation and warming over East Asia. Overall, the CESM-DPLE to a certain degree is capable of predicting the East Asian summer temperature on the interannual time scale and the interdecadal variations of East Asian summer climate associated with the transition of the AMO phase in the late 1990s, although there still exist some inadequacies. The CESM-DPLE Project provides an important resource for investigating and predicting the East Asian climate on the interannual and decadal time scales.