Monthly Mean Forecast Experiments with the GISS Model

The GISS general circulation model was used to compute global monthly mean forecasts for January 1973, 1974, and 1975 from initial conditions on the first day of each month and constant sea surface temperatures. Forecasts were evaluated in terms of global and hemispheric energetics, zonally averaged meridional and vertical profiles, forecast error statistics, and monthly mean synoptic fields. Although it generated a realistic mean meridional structure, the model did not adequately reproduce the observed interannual variations in the large scale monthly mean energetics and zonally averaged circulation. The monthly mean sea level pressure field was not predicted satisfactorily, but annual changes in the Icelandic low were simulated. The impact of temporal sea surface temperature variations on the forecasts was investigated by comparing two parallel forecasts for January 1974, one using climatological ocean temperatures and the other observed daily ocean temperatures. The use of daily updated sea surface temperatures produced no discernible beneficial effect.