▌VISION
Weather-Climate Connection
Historically, the atmospheric sciences tended to treat problems of “weather” and “climate” separately. The real physical system, however, is a continuum. In continuum mechanics, an energy cascade involves the transfer of energy from large scales to the small scales (called a direct energy cascade) or a transfer of energy from the small scales to the large scales (called an inverse energy cascade). Thus, fast “weather” processes and slower “climate” variations and change are influencing each other.
▌STRATEGY
Seamless Prediction
There has been a scientific awareness that the prediction of daily, weekly, and monthly to seasonal and longer-range climate fluctuations, and their interaction with the Earth system (physical weather/ climate; chemistry; biology) are integral parts of a seamless forecast problem. Improvements in the short-range (~ 1-3 day) weather forecasts will translate directly into improvements in seasonal and longer-range climate predictions. Conversely, improvements in seasonal and inter-annual predictions will provide useful information on the probability of occurrence of high-impact weather events, such as, winter storms and tropical cyclones, their frequency, storm tracks and intensity.
Unified Modeling
Under the seamless prediction, modeling of daily weather to long-term climate fluctuations and their interactions with the Earth system are integral parts of the overall simulation/prediction problem. With a unified modeling approach, the common processes can be addressed in both weather and climate models. The progress in the short-range forecast will be translated directly into improvements in long-range prediction, which is also true conversely. Since the strength of the seamless prediction chain depends on its weakest link. Finding and strengthening the weakest link will positively impact the entire prediction system.
Integrated Weather-Climate Services
In our regional to local service, it often requires prediction information on variability modes and stochastic components of the climate. With decreasing spatial scale, the short-term variability becomes large compared to the long-term trends, which comes to be critical when attributing anthropogenic causes to the local climate variation. The adapting to the near term is really an integrated part of the overall problem of adapting to the long term. 2011 discussions on stand-alone Climate Service vs. weather-climate service fully explored pros and cons, paving the way for later evolving to weather-climate service, which is developing today.
