Performance of the Seasonal Forecasting of the Asian Summer Monsoon by BCC_CSM1.1(m)

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of Asian summer monsoon prediction skill as a function of lead time and its relationship to sea surface temperature prediction using the seasonal hindcasts of the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model, BCC CSM1.1(m). For the South and Southeast Asian summer monsoon, reasonable skill is found in the model’s forecasting of certain aspects of monsoon climatology and spatiotemporal variability. Nevertheless, deficiencies such as significant forecast errors over the tropical western North Pacific and the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean are also found. In particular, overestimation of the connections of some dynamical monsoon indices with large-scale circulation and precipitation patterns exists in most ensemble mean forecasts, even for short lead-time forecasts.