Subseasonal predictability of the transition of the stratospheric polar vortex: A case study in winter 1987/88

The stratospheric polar vortex (SPV), which is an important factor in subseasonal-to-seasonal climate variability and climateprediction, exhibited a remarkable transition from weak in early winter to strong in late winter in 1987/88 (most significant on the interannual timescale during 1979-2019). Therefore, in this study, the subsea-sonal predictability of this transition SPV case in 1987/88 was investigated using the hindcasts from a selected model (that of the Japan Meteorological Agency) in the Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Prediction project database. Re-sults indicated that the predictability of both weak and strong SPV stages in winter 1987/88, especially near their peak dates, exhibited large sensitivity to the initial condition, which derived mainly from the sensitivity in cap-turing the 100-hPa eddy heat flux anomalies. Meanwhile, the key tropospheric precursory systems with respect to the occurrence and predictability of this transition SPV case were investigated. The Eurasian teleconnection wave trains might have been a key precursor for the weak SPV stage, while significant tropospheric precursors for the strong SPV stage were not found in this study. In addition, positive correlation ( r = 0.41) existed between the forecast biases of the SPV and the NAO in winter 1987/88, which indicates that reducing the forecast biases of the SPV might help to improve the forecasting of the NAO and tropospheric weather.