A Hydrologic Ensemble Seasonal Forecast System Over the Eastern U.S.

Eric F. Wood

Princeton University

Abstract:

The talk discusses the development of a hydrologic ensemble seasonal forecast system for the Eastern U.S. that builds on an experimental seasonal hydrologic forecast system that the speaker has developed in the Ohio River basin utilizing methods and through scientific collaboration with the more mature effort on-going in the western U.S. ("West- wide ensemble hydrologic prediction system") being lead by Dennis Lettenmaier and Andy Wood.

The talk will discuss the following issues:

1. The scientific and demonstration goals of the project, including its relevance to the NOAA's Climate Program Mission Goals as they relate to climate predictions and projections, OGP's Climate Prediction Program for the Americas, and NCEP's Climate Testbed Facility.

2. Review the current status of the Ohio Basin system and the development of an expanded Eastern U.S. hydrologic ensemble forecast system that will include all basins east of the Mississippi main stem.

3. Discuss the research and demonstration strategy for the project for developing ensembles useful for hydrologic applications, the analysis of the resulting seasonal hydrological predictions, with a focus on understanding the reliability of the ensemble forecasts and the overall uncertainty in the hydrologic ensembles due to model (seasonal climate and hydrologic) uncertainty, calibration uncertainty, data uncertainty, and so forth.