Monthly and Seasonal Prediction of Precipitation and Air Temperature in the Amur River Basin

Abstract

The ability to forecast air temperature and precipitation at monthly-seasonal time scale in the Amur River basin is assessed. The climatic characteristics of actual monthly values of air temperature and total precipitation are compared with those based on the semi-Lagrangian global finite-difference model (SL-AV) of general atmospheric circulation for the Amur basin. It is shown that there is high correlation between total precipitation for 1–2 months and water discharge in the Amur River in next months during the warm half-year. The SL-AV model forecasts of air temperature and precipitation in the Amur basin are verified. It is demonstrated that the accuracy of prediction of total precipitation averaged over the Amur basin is higher as compared with that for initial gridded forecasts. The accuracy of such forecasts is rather high for July and August being critical months for the flood formation. The procedure for the statistical correction of monthly and seasonal forecasts of air temperature and precipitation based on the SL-AV model and the regression scheme for the Amur runoff prediction are proposed.