Climate Forecasting Unit Decadal climate prediction in the Mediterranean region Virginie Guemas (1,2), Javier García-Serrano (1,3), Annarita Mariotti (4),

Climate Forecasting Unit

Decadal climate prediction in the Mediterranean region

Virginie Guemas (1,2), Javier García-Serrano (1,3), Annarita Mariotti (4), Francisco Doblas-Reyes (1,5), Louis-Philippe Caron (1,6)

1 - Institut Català de Ciències del Clima, Barcelona, Spain2 - Centre Nacional de Recherches Météorologiques, Groupe d’Etude de

l’Atmosphère Météorologique, Météo-France, UMR3589, Toulouse, France3 - Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat, UPMC, Paris, France4 - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Climate Program Office,

Silver Spring, USA5 - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain6 - Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Norrköping, Sweden

Climate Forecasting Unit

Mediterranean climate

To which extent will natural variability enhance or reduce externally-forced changes and for how long?

Mediterranean region = one of the most sensitive to climage change in terms of warming and drying (Mariotti et al. 2008) --> Source of predictability

During the 20th century, decadal variability has modulated the climate change signal in the Mediterranean region (Mariotti and Dell’Aquila, 2012)

Climate Forecasting Unit

AMV skill

Skill in predicting the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability is enhanced by initialization

From García-Serrano et al. (2013), AMV = North Atlantic mean SST (80W-0, 0-60N) - global mean SST (60S-60N)

Climate Forecasting Unit

AMO-related predictability

Strong connection between summer temperatures and AMO, weaker link in winter

DJF JJA

Observational AMO-temperature correlation patterns

From Mariotti and Dell’Aquila (2012)

Climate Forecasting Unit

Forecast years 6-9Forecast years 2-5

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Skill in annual temperature from CMIP5

Climate Forecasting UnitO

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Correlation annual temperature-AMV from CMIP5

Forecast years 6-9Forecast years 2-5