A New Look into the South America Precipitation Regimes: Observation and Forecast

South America is a vast continent characterized by diverse atmospheric phenomena and climate regimes. In this context, seasonal climate predictions are helpful for decision-making in several relevant socioeconomic segments in this territory, such as agriculture and energy generation. Thus, the present work evaluates the performance of ECMWF-SEAS5 in simulating the South American precipitation regimes by applying a non-hierarchical clustering technique. In addition, the study describes the main atmospheric systems that cause precipitation in each cluster and updates a previous work performed in South America in 2010. As a result, ECMWF-SEAS5 simulates (with good correspondence) the eight climate regimes identified in the analysis of precipitation from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC). Moreover, ECMWF-SEAS5 has a satisfactory ability in representing the rainfall regime in low and medium climate predictability regions, such as central and southern South America. ECMWF-SEAS5 has good performance in the climate characterization of South America and it gives us confidence in using its seasonal climate predictions throughout the continent.

Automated summary

This study evaluates the performance of ECMWF-SEAS5 in simulating South American precipitation regimes and updates previous research. The results show that ECMWF-SEAS5 accurately simulates eight climate regimes and performs well in low and medium climate predictability regions. This research is important for understanding and utilizing seasonal climate predictions in South America.