A Review on Development, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Ensemble Forecast

This paper reviews the development of ensemble weather forecast and primary techniques employed in the main ensemble prediction systems (EPSs) designed by China and other countries. Here, the emphasis is placed on the advancements in the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) global and regional ensemble prediction systems (i.e., CMA-GEPS and CMA-REPS), with particular attention to operational technologies such as initial and model perturbation methods and the applications of ensemble forecast. Through comparative verification with EPSs from other leading international numerical weather prediction (NWP) centers, CMA’s EPSs demonstrate forecast skill comparable to its global counterparts. As EPSs progress to convective scales and coupled systems between sea, land, air, and ice, the paper addresses some key challenges in ensemble forecast technologies across the aspects of operations, science, artificial intelligence (AI) integration, the merging of weather and climate, and user requirements. Finally, the summaries and future perspectives of ensemble forecast are demonstrated.