Long range predictability of atmospheric flows

Abstract. In the light of recent advances in 2D turbulence, we investigate the long range predictability problem of atmospheric flows. Using 2D Euler equations, we show that the full nonlinearity acting on a large number of degrees of freedom can, paradoxically, improve the predictability of the large scale motion, giving a picture opposite to the one largely popularized by Lorenz: a small local perturbation of the atmosphere will progressively gain larger and larger scales by nonlinear interaction and will finally cause large scale change in the atmospheric flow.