A statistical downscaling scheme to improve global precipitation forecasting

Based on hindcasts obtained from the “Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble system for seasonal to inTERannual prediction” (DEMETER) project, this study proposes a statistical downscaling (SD) scheme suitable for global precipitation forecasting. The key idea of this SD scheme is to select the optimal predictors that are best forecast by coupled general circulation models (CGCMs) and that have the most stable relationships with observed precipitation. Developing the prediction model and further making predictions using these predictors can extract useful information from the CGCMs. Cross-validation and independent sample tests indicate that this SD scheme can significantly improve the prediction capability of CGCMs during the boreal summer (June–August), even over polar regions. The predicted and observed precipitations are significantly correlated, and the root-mean-square-error of the SD scheme-predicted precipitation is largely decreased compared with the raw CGCM predictions. An inter-model comparison shows that the multi-model ensemble provides the best prediction performance. This study suggests that combining a multi-model ensemble with the SD scheme can improve the prediction skill for precipitation globally, which is valuable for current operational precipitation prediction.