Mechanisms and predictability of North Atlantic Decadal Climate variability

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Noel Sebastian Keenlyside
• Subject Area: Oceanography
• Term: from 2007 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 49987863

North Atlantic climate exhibits strong decadal-1o-multidecadal variability with significant global impacts. These impacts include European summer time temperatures, North Atlantic hurricanes, and droughts over Northern Africa, Brazil and India. These decadal-to-multidecadal variations are potentially predictable, and efforts are underway to develop decadal prediction systems. However, these efforts are hampered by major gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms involved. Lack of data is a primary reason for this. The proposal here is to apply a hierarchy of models to comprehensively map the parameter space of possible solutions, so that the limited observations can be better used to constrain the mechanisms involved. Key to this will be the development of an intermediate complexity model and a hybrid coupled model for the North Atlantic climate system. Other problems associated with decadal forecasting will also be tackled. In particular, innovative forecast initialisation schemes for extending the retrospective forecasts (hindcast) period back past the 1950s will be investigated.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups
• International Connection: Norway