Decadal Climate Prediction: Scientific Frontier and Challenge

The prediction of climate change in the future 10~30 year is a hot research area of the international community of the climate science, which has been listed as a core content of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and some other important international scientific projects. The forecast object of the decadal climate prediction has been extended from averaged state over the future 10~30 years to temporal evolutions in future 1~10 or 30 years. Recently, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has been preparing to issue climate states in the near future based on decadal climate prediction systems. Focusing on the cut-edging and challenging scientific questions of the decadal climate prediction, we reviewed the theoretic basis of the predictability of the decadal climate and recent progresses of the practical decadal prediction experiments by international modelling centers in the paper. Finally, we summarized the core scientific questions to be solved in the area and discuss ed possible pathways to improve the skills of the decadal climate prediction.