Operational Climate Prediction in the Era of Big Data in China: Reviews and Prospects

Big data has emerged as the next technological revolution in IT industry after cloud computing and the Internet of Things. With the development of climate observing systems, particularly satellite meteorological observation and high-resolution climate models, and the rapid growth in the volume of climate data, climate prediction is now entering the era of big data. The application of big data will provide new ideas and methods for the continuous development of climate prediction. The rapid integration, cloud storage, cloud computing, and full-sample analysis of massive climate data makes it possible to understand climate states and their evolution more objectively, thus predicting the future climate more accurately. This paper describes the application status of big data in operational climate prediction in China; it analyzes the key big data technologies, discusses the future development of climate prediction operations from the perspective of big data, speculates on the prospects for applying climatic big data in cloud computing and data assimilation, and puts forward the notion of big data-based super-ensemble climate prediction methods and computer-based deep learning climate prediction methods.