A UNIFIED MODELING APPROACH TO CLIMATE SYSTEM PREDICTION

Some of the challenges involved in developing a unified modeling framework that provides for the hierarchical treatment of forecast and climate phenomena are discussed. The latest weather forecasting is carried out using atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) that have been traditionally forced with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies observed at initial stages, creating significant challenges. The radiative forcings and coupled interactions and feedbacks among the climate system components are critical for decadal-to-centennial predictions. These coupled model integrations are initialized from an arbitrary and relatively stable climate state obtained from a several-century control integration. These atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) include components of the atmosphere, ocean, land surface, and sea ice.