Analysis and Prediction of the European Winter Climate

In this thesis a dynamical forecast approach is considered to evaluate the potential seasonal predictability in the European-Atlantic region with emphasis on the mean winter climate. Two state-of-the-art seasonal forecast systems are used, namely the Seasonal Forecast System 2 from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and a multi-model system developed within the joint European project DEMETER (Development of a European Multi-Model Ensemble Prediction System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction). The predictions are verified with the ERA-40 reanalysis data.