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From March through October 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center provided monthly sea ice outlooks to the National Weather Service Alaska Region. The outlooks were based on output from an experimental set-up of the Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) model, which ingests initial sea ice thickness data from the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS). All other initialization data come from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). Twenty ensemble model runs were integrated from the 8th through the 12th of each month and several products were delivered including sea ice concentration, sea ice concentration standard deviation, sea ice probability, first projected sea ice melt date, and first projected sea ice freeze date (starting in June). Here we present an overall verification of different products against available observations.
Results show stronger skill in the prediction of sea ice extent and sea ice concentration than its operational counterpart and illustrates the importance of using an improved forecast system as sea ice prediction continues to be a crucial factor for a variety of Arctic interests. Predictions of ice melt date and ice freeze date, while not as widely used, also proved valuable. Exact prediction of these variables is near impossible due to atmospheric processes that cannot be predicted months in advance. However, it is shown that through modeled trends and standard deviations, that it is indeed plausible to issue a meaningful forecast of first ice freeze date and ice melt date given a spread is quantified. Further refinements to the experimental model will continue and plans are to resume monthly sea ice outlooks beginning in March 2016.