FORECASTING GLOBAL ENSO-RELATED CLIMATE ANOMALIES

Long-range global climate forecasts have been made by use of a model f or predicting a tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) in tand em with an atmospheric general circulation model. The SST is predicted first at long lead times into the future. These ocean forecasts are t hen used to force the atmospheric model and so produce climate forecas ts at lead times of the SST forecasts. Prediction of the wintertime 50 0 mb height, surface air temperature and precipitation for seven large climatic events of the 1970 to 1990s by this two-tiered technique agr ee well in general with observations over many regions of the globe. T he levels of agreement are high enough in some regions to have practic al utility.