CanStoc: a merged CanSIPS-StocSIPS macroweather forecasting system

Abstract

Many atmospheric fields, in particular temperature, respect statistical symmetries that characterize the macroweather regime (time-scales longer than the lifetime of planetary sized structures (about 10 days) and the scale at which the anthropogenic forcings begin to dominate the natural variability (currently 10 – 20 years). The scale-invariance of the fluctuations implies the existence a huge memory in the system that can be exploited for macroweather forecasts. The space-time statistical factorization (STSF) of the correlation function is another statistical symmetry. STSF relates space and time and implies that at a specific place, when long enough time series are available, spatial correlations cannot be used to improve the forecast. This is because the correlation information from (for example) teleconnections is already contained in the past values of the series.