Advances in Seasonal Predictions of Arctic Sea Ice With NOAA UFS

Abstract The Unified Forecast System (UFS) is the next generation modeling infrastructure under development for NOAA's operational numerical weather/climate predictions. This study first attempt with UFS seasonal predictions application. In particular, 9‐month hindcasts are performed starting from every month during 2007–2020. performance in predicting Arctic sea ice was compared to by (a) current Climate version 2 (CFSv2) and (b) an experimental prediction system (CFSm5) at NOAA. Evaluations indicate that demonstrates consistently improved skills than both CFSv2 CFSm5 predictions, together more realistic climatological distributions. Diagnostics suggest better distributions related its atmospheric states simulated FV3, component of UFS, reinforced associated ocean circulations. addition, applications multi‐model ensemble strategy do not present skill improvements over forecasts alone.