Some physical processes that affect the climate system, such as El Niño and the global oceanic circulation, provide potential sources of climate predictability from a season to decades ahead.

Our work involves the study of these processes in order to improve their representation in our prediction models. This way we hope to improve forecast skill.

Key aims

• To identify the principal sources of seasonal and decadal predictability

• To improve representations of key processes in numerical prediction models

• To develop new methods for the prediction of seasonal and decadal climate

Current research areas

• Assessment of climate model performance on seasonal to decadal timescales.

• Mechanisms of Atlantic variability.

• Simulation of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and its global impacts.

• Troposphere-stratosphere interactions.

• Assessment of forecast initialisation methodologies.

• The land surface in seasonal and decadal predictability.

• Analysis of sub-surface ocean mechanisms.

• Sahel and European summer climate.