Collaboration of the weather and climate communities to advance subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction

Progress in long-range prediction depends on coordination of research in multimodel ensembles, in tropical convection and its interaction with the global circulation, in data assimilation, and in socio-economic applications. The four main areas of the World Weather Research Program-World Climate Research Program (WWRP-WCRP) collaboration includes seamless weather/climate prediction, including ensemble prediction systems (EPSs), multiscale organization of tropical convection and its two-way interaction with the global circulation, data assimilation for coupled models, and utilization of sub-seasonal and seasonal predictions for social and economic benefits. Data assimilation allows the diagnosis of errors while they are still small, before they interact significantly with other fields. The success of this endeavor will depend on the collaboration, commitment, excellence, and strength of the weather, climate, Earth system, and social science research communities.