| Session Details | |
| Section | AS - Atmospheric Sciences |
| Session Title | Predictability of Weather and Climate: Theory, Methodology and Applications |
| Main Convener | Prof. Wansuo Duan (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Stéphane Vannitsem (Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Belgium) Prof. Tieh-Yong Koh (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) |
| Session Description | Accurate predictions of weather and climate have enormous social and economic values but remain to have significant uncertainties at different time and spatial scales. The difficulties and challenges may come from uncertainties in the initial conditions and/or errors in the forecast models. Moreover, nonlinear processes, leading to a chaotic behavior, may amplify sources of uncertainties and lead to the loss of predictability. This session will focus on the predictability of different weather and climate phenomena from thunderstorms, torrential rains, and tropical cyclones to ENSO and abrupt climate change with time scales ranging from a few hours to centuries and even longer. Contributions related to theoretical, numerical (from idealized models to comprehensive earth system models), and/or observational research are greatly encouraged. The main topics could include but are not limited to determining and/or testing the intrinsic limit of predictability by: 1. Quantifying practical predictabilities of both deterministic and probabilistic approaches for weather and climate forecasts; 2. Characterizing key nonlinear physical processes controlling the chaotic behavior and hence limiting the predictability; and 3. Exploring novel approaches to reduce/control the above uncertainties such as data assimilation, ensemble forecast, and targeted (i.e., adaptive) observations. |