LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they can make climate forecasts out to 16 months, nearly twice the length of time previously achieved by climate scientists.

Atmospheric scientists at UCLA acknowledge their forecasts are much more general than short-term weather forecasts but could be of major importance in fields such as agriculture, industry and the economy.


"Certain climate features might be predictable, although not in such detail as the temperature and whether it will rain in Los Angeles on such a day two years from now," Michael Ghil, UCLA professor of climate dynamics, said in a university release Monday.

"These are averages over larger areas and longer time spans."

Ghil and his colleagues analyzed sea-surface temperatures globally and came up with a new algorithm based on the mathematics of how short-term weather interacts with long-term climate.

Weather covers a period of days, while climate covers months and longer, the researches said.

They used five decades of climate data to test predictions retrospectively, for example analyzing data from 1950 to 1970 to make "forecasts" for January 1971, February 1971 and beyond, and then checked historical data to see how accurate the predictions were.

They reported achieved higher accuracy in their predictions 16 months out than other scientists achieved in predictions of just half that length, they said.