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Seasonal prediction of the South Pacific Convergence Zone in the austral wet season

The position and orientation of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), modulated by the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO), determine many of the potentially predictable interannual variations in rainfall in the South Pacific region. In this study, the predictability of the SPCZ in austral summer is assessed using two coupled (ocean‐atmosphere) global circulation model (CGCM)‐based seasonal prediction systems: the Japan Meteorological Agency's Meteorological Research Institute Coupled Ocean‐Atmosphere General Circulation Model (JMA/MRI‐CGCM) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Predictive Ocean‐Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA‐M24). Forecasts of austral summer rainfall, initialized in November are assessed over the period 1980–2010. The climatology of CGCM precipitation in the SPCZ region compares favorably to rainfall analyses over subsets of years characterizing different phases of ENSO. While the CGCMs display biases in the mean SPCZ latitudes, they reproduce interannual variability in austral summer SPCZ position indices for forecasts out to 4 months, with temporal correlations greater than 0.6. The summer latitude of the western branch of the SPCZ is predictable with correlations of the order of 0.6 for forecasts initialized as early as September, while the correlation for the eastern branch only exceeds 0.6 for forecasts initialized in November. Encouragingly, the models are able to simulate the large displacement of the SPCZ during zonal SPCZ years 1982–1983, 1991–1992, and 1997–1998.