Climate intelligence for charting sustainable development

Predicting the climate a decade in advance

Our prediction system, the Norwegian climate prediction model, combines the Norwegian Earth system model with Ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation. The former accurately simulate climate and anthropogenically driven global warming. While the assimilation of ocean and sea ice data is used to synchronize the model with the observed shorter-term fluctuations in climate. Thus, we can skilfully predict the climate out to a decade in advance.

The Norwegian climate prediction model is particularly skilful on multi-annual timescales in the North Atlantic to Arctic Sector. Paramount here is the transport of heat by the ocean to high latitudes and its influence on sea ice and the atmosphere. It gives rise to pronounced decadal shifts in climate in the region. Our model is one of a few that is predicting a shift to cooler conditions in the North Atlantic that could temporarily offset the effects of global warming in our region and parts of the Arctic (see figure below).
 

IPCC climate report contribution

Our numerical predictions are being used globally and locally. We were part of the decadal climate prediction project that contributed data for the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report Six. We contribute quasi-operational forecasts to the World Meteorological Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update Reports. At the national level, our climate predictions are available to more than 20 user partners from agriculture, renewable energy, shipping, and insurance sectors through Climate Futures—a recently funded centre for innovation-based research.