A review on development，challenges，and future perspectives of ensemble forecast

This paper reviews the development of ensemble weather forecast and the primary techniques employed in themain ensemble prediction systems (EPSs) designed by China and other countries. Here, the emphasis is placed on theadvancements in the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) global and regional ensemble prediction systems (i.e., CMA-GEPS and CMA-REPS), with particular attention to operational technologies such as initial and modelperturbation methods and the applications of ensemble forecast. Through comparative verification with EPSs fromother leading international numerical weather prediction (NWP) centers, CMA's EPSs demonstrate forecast skillscomparable to its global counterparts. As EPSs progress to convective scales and coupled systems between sea, land,air, and ice, the paper addresses some key challenges in ensemble forecast technologies across the aspects of opera-tion, science, integration of artificial intelligence (AI), merging of weather and climate models, and challenging userrequirements. Finally, a summary of conclusions and future perspectives on ensemble forecast are provided.