Difficulties in predicting Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD):
     (compared to ENSO predictions)
•Signal is not as strong/regular as ENSO
•Chaotic and active ISOs (initial conditions & predictions)
•Strong monsoon influence (seasonal & interannual)
•ENSO influence (require correct ENSO onset prediction)
•Large deficiencies of current coupled GCMs in simulating Indian Ocean climate
•Sparse subsurface observations in the Indian Ocean
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For the Indian Ocean Dipole predictions, however, we are still facing large difficulties.  One problem is that the signal is not as strong and regular as ENSO. And IOD can be strongly influenced by many other physical processes like MJO, monsoon, and ENSO.  Besides, current CGCMs have large deficiencies in…. and observations in the Indian Ocean are too sparse to provide good initial conditions.