Predictability of the summer East Asian upper-tropospheric westerly jet in ENSEMBLES multi-model forecasts

Abstract

The interannual variation of the East Asian upper-tropospheric westerly jet (EAJ) significantly affects East Asian climate in summer. Identifying its performance in model prediction may provide us another viewpoint, from the perspective of upper-tropospheric circulation, to understand the predictability of summer climate anomalies in East Asia. This study presents a comprehensive assessment of year-to-year variability of the EAJ based on retrospective seasonal forecasts, initiated from 1 May, in the five state-of-the-art coupled models from ENSEMBLES during 1960–2005. It is found that the coupled models show certain capability in describing the interannual meridional displacement of the EAJ, which reflects the models’ performance in the first leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode. This capability is mainly shown over the region south of the EAJ axis. Additionally, the models generally capture well the main features of atmospheric circulation and SST anomalies related to the interannual meridional displacement of the EAJ. Further analysis suggests that the predicted warm SST anomalies in the concurrent summer over the tropical eastern Pacific and northern Indian Ocean are the two main sources of the potential prediction skill of the southward shift of the EAJ. In contrast, the models are powerless in describing the variation over the region north of the EAJ axis, associated with the meridional displacement, and interannual intensity change of the EAJ, the second leading EOF mode, meaning it still remains a challenge to better predict the EAJ and, subsequently, summer climate in East Asia, using current coupled models.