Neural Network Model Forecasts of the NINO3.4

Sea Surface Temperature

contributed by Benyang Tang¹, William W. Hsieh¹ and Fredolin T. Tangang²

¹Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

²Department of Marine Science, Faculty of Science & Natural Resources, National University of Malaysia,

The model we used to produce these forecasts is the same as that appearing in the September 1998 Issue of this Bulletin. The reader is referred to that issue for details of our model.

Figure 1 shows the forecasts at leadtimes of 3, 6, 9, and 12-months, using data up to February 2000. Forecasts at 6- and 12-month leadtimes indicate that the current La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific will gradually return to near normal conditions by the end of 2000.

Figure captions

Figure 1. Forecasts of the neural networks at 3, 6, 9, and 12-month leadtimes. The solid curve shows the observed values and the circles, the predicted values.