Phase-II: MJO Prediction and Teleconnections

During the second phase of the S2S project, the MJO prediction and teleconnections sub-project will focus on two major tasks:

A. The relationship between the MJO and High Impact Weather in the Tropics and the potential for predictive skill for these events at 2 week – 2 month lead time. This activity will benefit from links developed within the international community through e.g. the S2S Africa sub-project; the Years of Maritime Continent; and the WWRP High Impact Weather Project. 

B. Tropical-Extratropical teleconnections associated with the MJO and the potential for extratropical predictive skill associated with the MJO. This activity will benefit from links developed with the Year of Tropical –Mid-latitude Interactions, Teleconnections sub-project, and WGSIP Initiative Interaction/Teleconnection between tropics and extra-tropics, The Year of Polar Prediction Project.

These two tasks will be tackled in parallel and research activities to address related questions will be spread over the course of sub-project. Specific questions to address include:

a. How well do operational S2S models capture the observed relationship between the MJO and high impact weather events? 

b. How does the teleconnections depend on the horizontal, vertical and temporal structure of the diabatic heating anomalies associated with the MJO? 

c. Metrics for assessment of model teleconnections and diagnosing sources of errors in teleconnections

d. Does the relationship between the MJO and high impact weather events lead to enhanced predictive skill for these events for particular phases of the MJO or whilst there is strong MJO activity?

e. How do variations in the slowly varying background state effect the Rossby wave source and the subsequent Rossby wave propagation from the source region?