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 EPSs, 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 ensemble prediction system demonstrates forecast skill comparable to its global counterparts. With EPSs progressing to convective scales and coupling between sea, land, air, and ice, 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 demonstrated.