Koide Naohisa author Columbia University. Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences Lucero Anthony author Robertson Andrew W. author Columbia University. International Research Institute for Climate and Society Ines Amor Valeriano M. author Columbia University. International Research Institute for Climate and Society Qian Jianhua author Columbia University. International Research Institute for Climate and Society DeWitt David G. author Columbia University. International Research Institute for Climate and Society Columbia University. International Research Institute for Climate and Society originator text Articles 2012 English Predictive skills of retrospective seasonal climate forecasts tailored to Philippine rice production data at national, regional, and provincial levels are investigated using precipitation hindcasts from one uncoupled general circulation model (GCM) and two coupled GCMs, as well as using antecedent observations of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, warm water volume and zonal winds (WWV and ZW). Contrasting cross-validated predictive skills are found between the “dry” January–June and “rainy” July–December crop-production seasons. For the dry season, both irrigated and rainfed rice production are shown to depend strongly on rainfall in the previous October to December. Furthermore, rice-crop hindcasts based on the two coupled GCMs, or on the observed WWV and ZW, are each able to account for more than half the total variance of the dry-season national detrended rice production with about a six-month lead time prior to the beginning of the harvest season. At regional and provincial level, predictive skills are generally low. The relationships are found to be more complex for rainy season rice production. Area harvested correlates positively with rainfall during the preceding dry season, whereas the yield has positive and negative correlations with rainfall in June–September and in October–December of the harvested year respectively; tropical cyclone activity is shown to be contributing factor in the latter three-month season. Retrospective forecasts based on the WWV and ZW are able to account for almost half of the variance of detrended rice production data in Luzon with a few months lead time prior to the beginning of the rainy season. Meteorology http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-11-0254.1 http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:14998 NNC NNC 2012-10-19 11:56:42 -0400 2012-10-19 12:10:06 -0400 9002 eng