AOSC Seminar by Dr. Michelle L'Heureux, 2/2/2023
AOSC Seminar
Dr. Michelle L'Heureux
NOAA Climate Prediction Center
Title:
Prediction Challenges from Errors in Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Trends
Abstract:
Initialized, monthly mean predictions of the tropical Pacific Ocean are made against the backdrop of a warming climate, and it is unclear to what extent these predictions are impacted by trends. Here, we analyze the forecast models that comprise the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) and uncover significant linear trend errors that have consequences for the tropical Pacific basin and ENSO variability. All models show positive trend errors over the eastern equatorial Pacific over the 1982-2020 hindcast and real-time period. These positive trend errors interact with the mean bias of each respective model, reducing, over time, the bias of models that are too cold and increasing the bias of models that are too warm. These trend errors lead to a tropical Pacific that is too warm and too wet over the basin, and are significantly correlated with an increase in El Niño false alarms.
Bio:
Michelle L'Heureux is a physical scientist at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center in College Park, MD, where she has worked for over 18 years. For 15 of those years, she has been the lead of the NOAA El Niño-Southern Oscillation products and forecasts. Since 2014, she has been an editor, writer, and lead coordinator of the NOAA ENSO blog, which is hosted by climate.gov and seeks to inform and engage the science-interested public on ENSO and other climate relevant topics. Michelle also remains active in applied research, and has been the lead author on 15 journal articles and a co-author on over 30 more articles. She recently became co-chair of the US CLIVAR Predictability, Predictions, and Applications (PPAI) panel.
Contact: Maria Molina
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AOSC Seminar
Pre-seminar refreshment: N/A
Seminar: 3:30-4:30pm, Room: ATL 2400(only when in-person)
Meet-the-Speaker: 4:30-5:00pm, Room: ATL 3400(only when in-person) [For AOSC Students only]
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