A Preliminary Study on the Polar Climate Predictability

Studies have revealed that predictability of the atmospheric general circulation is generally high in the tropics throughout the year and that there is some predictability in the Northern extra-tropical winter at-mospheric circulation through some patterns of tele connection. Predictability of the general circulation at the polar regions has still remained as a ‘cold’ topic and little has been known about this question. Based on a preliminary study on the predictability by using the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) general circulation model, it is found that the SST-related predictability of the Southern winter lower atmospheric circulation in Antarctica is reasonably high and that there is some predictability in the 500 hPa and 200 hPa geopotential height fields over Europe and the Okhotsk Sea region during the Northern winter. It is sug-gested that more researches on this issue based on data analysis and model simulations are needed to obtain better understanding.