Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 2701-2704
Forecast of tropical Pacific SST and sea level using a Markov model
Yan Xue and Ants Leetmaa
Climate Modeling Branch, EMC/NCEP/NOAA, Washington D.C.
Keywords: El Niño-Southern Oscillation, Prediction Skill, Sea Level
Summary
A seasonally varying Markov model is constructed in a multivariate EOF
space of observed SST and sea level analysis for 1981-98. The hindcast
skill of SST and sea level is estimated with a cross-validation
scheme. For SST, the correlation skill is highest in the
central-eastern equatorial Pacific at about 0.5 at 9 month lead. The
Markov model has a marginal SST forecast skill at 3 month lead
(> 0.4) in the north-western Pacific (NWP) around 10N. For sea
level, the correlation skill is highest in the central equatorial
Pacific and the NWP around 10N at above 0.5 at 9 month lead. In
the western Pacific, sea level anomalies are generally more
predictable than SST anomalies. The real time forecast of sea level by
the Markov model has been published at the official web site of the
Climate Prediction Center, NOAA.