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Main Authors: Ganji, Saghar, Naisipour, Mohammad, Hassani, Alireza, Adib, Arash
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06227
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author Ganji, Saghar
Naisipour, Mohammad
Hassani, Alireza
Adib, Arash
author_facet Ganji, Saghar
Naisipour, Mohammad
Hassani, Alireza
Adib, Arash
contents The accurate long-term forecasting of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is still one of the biggest challenges in climate science. While it is true that short-to medium-range performance has been improved significantly using the advances in deep learning, statistical dynamical hybrids, most operational systems still use the simple mean of all ensemble members, implicitly assuming equal skill across members. In this study, we demonstrate, through a strictly a-posteriori evaluation , for any large enough ensemble of ENSO forecasts, there is a subset of members whose skill is substantially higher than that of the ensemble mean. Using a state-of-the-art ENSO forecast system cross-validated against the 1986-2017 observed Nino3.4 index, we identify two Top-5 subsets one ranked on lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and another on highest Pearson correlation. Generally across all leads, these outstanding members show higher correlation and lower RMSE, with the advantage rising enormously with lead time. Whereas at short leads (1 month) raises the mean correlation by about +0.02 (+1.7%) and lowers the RMSE by around 0.14 °C or by 23.3% compared to the All-40 mean, at extreme leads (23 months) the correlation is raised by +0.43 (+172%) and RMSE by 0.18 °C or by 22.5% decrease. The enhancements are largest during crucial ENSO transition periods such as SON and DJF, when accurate amplitude and phase forecasting is of greatest socio-economic benefit, and furthermore season-dependent e.g., mid-year months such as JJA and MJJ have incredibly large RMSE reductions. This study provides a solid foundation for further investigations to identify reliable clues for detecting high-quality ensemble members, thereby enhancing forecasting skill.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_06227
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Distillation of CNN Ensemble Results for Enhanced Long-Term Prediction of the ENSO Phenomenon
Ganji, Saghar
Naisipour, Mohammad
Hassani, Alireza
Adib, Arash
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Applied Physics
The accurate long-term forecasting of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is still one of the biggest challenges in climate science. While it is true that short-to medium-range performance has been improved significantly using the advances in deep learning, statistical dynamical hybrids, most operational systems still use the simple mean of all ensemble members, implicitly assuming equal skill across members. In this study, we demonstrate, through a strictly a-posteriori evaluation , for any large enough ensemble of ENSO forecasts, there is a subset of members whose skill is substantially higher than that of the ensemble mean. Using a state-of-the-art ENSO forecast system cross-validated against the 1986-2017 observed Nino3.4 index, we identify two Top-5 subsets one ranked on lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and another on highest Pearson correlation. Generally across all leads, these outstanding members show higher correlation and lower RMSE, with the advantage rising enormously with lead time. Whereas at short leads (1 month) raises the mean correlation by about +0.02 (+1.7%) and lowers the RMSE by around 0.14 °C or by 23.3% compared to the All-40 mean, at extreme leads (23 months) the correlation is raised by +0.43 (+172%) and RMSE by 0.18 °C or by 22.5% decrease. The enhancements are largest during crucial ENSO transition periods such as SON and DJF, when accurate amplitude and phase forecasting is of greatest socio-economic benefit, and furthermore season-dependent e.g., mid-year months such as JJA and MJJ have incredibly large RMSE reductions. This study provides a solid foundation for further investigations to identify reliable clues for detecting high-quality ensemble members, thereby enhancing forecasting skill.
title Distillation of CNN Ensemble Results for Enhanced Long-Term Prediction of the ENSO Phenomenon
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06227