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

This paper reviews the development of ensemble weather forecast and the primary techniques employed in the main ensemble prediction systems (EPS) designed by China and other countries. Here, the emphasis is placed on the development of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) global and regional EPSs, focusing on operational technologies such as initial and model perturbation methods, and the applications of ensemble forecast. By comparing the verification results of CMA EPS and other major international NWP centers’ EPSs, the CMA EPS shows comparable forecast skills to other international EPSs’. As the development of EPS moves towards convective-scale and sea-land-air-ice coupling, the paper addresses the key challenges in ensemble forecast technologies on the aspects of operation, science, integrated with Artificial Intelligence (AI), the integration of weather and climate, and user requirements. Finally, the summaries and future perspectives of ensemble forecast are given.