Subseasonal Prediction of Blocking-related Processes With Advanced Coupled Models Including The 30km Fim-hycom Coupled Model

Abstract

Extreme events for subseasonal duration have been linked to multi-week processes related to onset, duration, and cessation of blocking events or, more generally, quasi-stationary waves. Results will be shown from different sets of 4-week experiments over a 16-year period for these processes for different resolution, numerics, and physics using the FIM-HYCOM coupled model. The coupled atmosphere (FIM) and ocean (HYCOM) modeling system is a relatively new coupled atmosphere-ocean model developed for subseasonal to seasonal prediction. Both component models operate on a common icosahedral horizontal grid and use an adaptive hybrid vertical coordinate (sigma-isentropic in FIM and sigma-isopycnic in HYCOM). FIM-HYCOM has been used to conduct 16 years of subseasonal retrospective forecasts following the Subseasonal (SubX) NMME protocol (32-day forward integrations), run with 4 ensemble members per week. Preliminary results from this multi-year FIM-HYCOM hindcast include a small underforecast of stratospheric warming events (from archived 10 hPa fields), improved MJO predictability using the Grell-Freitas scale-aware cumulus scheme instead of the Simplified Arakawa-Schubert scheme, and little sensitivity to resolution for blocking frequency. Forecast skill of metrics from FIM-HYCOM including 500 hPa heights and MJO index is at least comparable to that of the operational Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) used by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Subseasonal skill is improved with a limited multi-model (FIM-HYCOM and CFSv2), consistent with previous seasonal multi-model ensemble results. Ongoing work will also be reported on using advanced approaches to subgrid-scale clouds to address regional biases important for seasonal and medium-range weather prediction scales.