Evaluations and Ensemble Approaches of Western-Pacific Subtropical High and South-Asian High Ensemble Forecasting in GRAPES-GEPS

Based on the operational standard indices, the prediction skills of the Western-Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) and South-Asian High (SAH) using 2019 real-time forecasts derived from the Global Ensemble Prediction System of GRAPES (GRAPES-GEPS) in China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Numerical Prediction Center were evaluated and the effects of different ensemble approaches on the prediction skills of WPSH and SAH indices were further investigated in this study. The results show that for WPSH, the GRAPES-GEPS has its highest prediction skill for the ridge line index, considerably high skill for the intensity and area indices, but relatively low skill for the western boundary index, and for SAH, it has comparatively high skill for the intensity and center latitude indices, but relatively lower skill for the center longitude index. Prediction errors of the GRAPES-GEPS for the WPSH forecasts are featured by the weaker intensity and area and the more eastward center position, compared with the observation, which can be effectively reduced by employing the maximum/minimum approach from ensemble members, relative to the ensemble mean approach. By direct comparison, prediction errors of the GRAPES-GEPS for the SAH forecasts are featured by the weaker intensity and the more southward center position, which tends to be slightly reduced using the ensemble mean approach. Finally, for the extreme forecast, the maximum approach provides superior performance for both WPSH and SAH than the ensemble mean approach, which can be validated in terms of the two extreme cases. These results clearly indicate that the maximum approach could better improve the GRAPES-GEPS performance for the extreme forecasting of the two primary circulation patterns than the traditional ensemble mean approach.