Progress and Challenge of the Short-Term Climate Prediction

The experience of developing a short-term climate prediction system at the Institute of Atmospheric Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is summarized, and some problems to be solved in future are discussed in this paper. It is suggested that a good system for short-term climate prediction should at least consist of (1) well-tested model(s), (2) sufficient data and good methods for the initialization and assimilation, (3) a good system for quantitative corrections, (4) a good ensemble prediction method, and (5) appropriate prediction products, such as mathematical expectation, standard deviation, probability, among others.