December 10, 2024
After telling people for decades to keep a close eye on “indicators” such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Bureau of Meteorology is changing tack.
BOM wants the community to follow its short-term and long-term forecasts instead to gain a better understanding of what the season ahead will be like.
From this week, BOM will stop issuing fortnightly Climate Driver Updates, publishing international climate model summaries and forecasts for ENSO and IOD, the ENSO Outlook Watch, alert statements and the ENSO dial.
Climate manager Dr Karl Braganza said as the climate continued to change, historical experience was “less aligned to the present and future climate”.
“Therefore, old methods of prediction have become less reliable and new models based on current information are a more reliable way to help the community and industry best plan and prepare for coming seasonal trends,” he said.
“We are moving away from focusing on individual environmental phenomena. In a changing climate it is more difficult to make predictions based on events when they are looked at individually – climate systems are complex and cannot be explained by just one influencing factor.
“The Bureau’s long-range 90-day forecasts, which are issued and updated regularly, are the best guide for the community regarding Australia’s likely rainfall and temperature for the weeks and months ahead.”
These long-range forecasts are based on the ACCESS-S model which has been developed over the past decade. It considers current atmospheric and oceanic observations, including changing greenhouse gas concentrations, and uses physics to produce its forecasts.
However, climate indicators will still be published on new Southern Hemisphere monitoring and outlook web pages.
Visit the climate pages on the Bureau’s website for:
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