As more attention is drawn to possible severe weather around the world scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are looking to improve planning for possible droughts, floods and other scenarios.
As more attention is drawn to possible severe weather around the world scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are looking to improve planning for possible droughts, floods and other scenarios. Researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) created a new tool that will allow forecasting of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) by up to 18 months.
The findings, which meld insights into the physics of the ocean and atmosphere with predictive accuracy, were published in Nature.
“We have developed a new conceptual model—the so-called extended nonlinear recharge oscillator (XRO) model—that significantly improves predictive skill of ENSO events at over one year in advance, better than global climate models and comparable to the most skillful artificial intelligence [AI] forecasts,” said Sen Zhao, lead author of the study and assistant researcher in SOEST’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences. “Our model effectively incorporates the fundamental physics of ENSO and ENSO’s interactions with other climate patterns in the global oceans that vary from season to season.”
Scientists have been working for decades to improve ENSO predictions given its global environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Traditional operational forecasting models have struggled to successfully predict ENSO with lead times exceeding one year.
Read more at University of Hawaii at Manoa
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