Model Outlooks of ENSO Conditions from January 2010

Product Code: IDCKGLM000

Models predict that El Niño conditions will persist through the remainder of summer 2010

Summary

As detailed in our ENSO Wrap-up, ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific remain at levels typical of a mature El Niño event. However since peaking in late December, temperatures have continued to cool in the last month.

Most climate model simulations are predicting that the warmer temperatures will persist in El Niño regions over the remainder of the austral summer, followed by a return to neutral conditions by winter 2010.

The ensemble mean predictions from POAMA, ECMWF, UKMO and the NASA Goddard models indicate a reasonably rapid cooling of Nino3.4 toward neutral conditions during autumn, while NCEP CFS, JMA and KMA predict a more gradual decline.

Typically, autumn is a transitional period for the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Hence model predictions of El Niño beyond autumn are less reliable than at other times of the year. Individual model runs from POAMA, NCEP CFS and KMA show the possibility of warm conditions persisting through to winter.

Historically, the link between El Niño and Australian rainfall is not as strong during late summer as it is at other times of the year.

Model Outlooks

The following table summarizes the opinion of National Climate Centre climatologists regarding the outputs from various forecast models. The model set contains eight reputable ocean or coupled ocean/atmosphere climate models that take into account complex physical ocean processes. NCC's interpretation may not necessarily be the same as the organisations producing the model output. You are therefore encouraged to follow the hyperlinks to the various institutions listed in the table.

See About ENSO outlooks for details on the models and a summary of the terms used.

MODEL / GROUP	Forecast Start Date	1-4 MONTHS (Feb 10 to Jun 10)	4-7 MONTHS (Jun 10 to Aug 10)
POAMA Australian Bureau of Meteorology	3 January - 1 February	Warm/Neutral	Neutral
System 3 ECMWF (EU)	01 January	Warm/Neutral	Neutral
GloSea * UK Met Office	01 January	Warm/Neutral	Neutral
CFS NCEP (US)	3 January - 1 February	Warm/Neutral	Warm/Neutral
CGCMv1 NASA Goddard GMAO (US)	January	Warm/Neutral	Neutral
JMA-CGCM02 Japan Met. Agency	December	Warm	Neutral #
KMA-SNU Korean Met. Administration	December	Warm/Neutral	Neutral #
BCC_CMA BCC/CMA (China)	Unavailable	Unavailable	Unavailable

# Model forecast is run only until the end of July
* Note that this page requires a password, freely available from UK Met Office
Note that some links above may be updated to more recent forecasts than listed here.

POAMA Forecasts

The POAMA model, run at the Bureau of Meteorology, generates a new forecast every day for the following eight months starting with the latest observations. The average of the most recent 30 model runs predicts the recent warming will be sustained through the remainder of the summer.

While predictability is much lower than for the Pacific Ocean, POAMA continues to predict a neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) to persist through the outlook period. The NASA GMAO model, the only other model surveyed here for which IOD forecasts are published, is predicting a neutral IOD out to July 2010.

April 2010

For the 30 runs of POAMA between 3 Jan 2010 and 1 Feb 2010, the average NINO3.4 temperature anomaly for MARCH 2010 is +1.46°C and the frequency distribution is as follows:
below −0.8°C: 0% (Cool)
−0.8°C to +0.8°C: 43.3% (Neutral)
above +0.8°C: 56.7% (Warm)

July 2010

And similarly for July 2010 the average NINO3.4 index is +1.10°C and the frequency distribution is:
below −0.8°C: 0% (Cool)
−0.8°C to +0.8°C: 53.3% (Neutral)
above +0.8°C: 46.7% (Warm)

Similar data for other months can be accessed by following the "POAMA" link in the table above.

Users should exercise caution when interpreting these forecasts and are encouraged to view the actual model outputs by following the web links. Frequent updates of the latest observational data with relevant commentary are available on the Bureau's ENSO Wrap-Up page.

This survey last updated 3rd February 2010.
Next update expected late February 2010.