Statistical Downscaling of Daily Precipitation Process at an Ungaged Location in the Context of Climate Change

Author(s):  
Van-Thanh-Van Nguyen ◽  
Myeong-Ho Yeo
2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 923-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiafeng Wang ◽  
Xuebin Zhang

Abstract Large-scale atmospheric variables have been statistically downscaled to derive winter (December–March) maximum daily precipitation at stations over North America using the generalized extreme value distribution (GEV). Here, the leading principal components of the sea level pressure field and local specific humidity are covariates of the distribution parameters. The GEV parameters are estimated using data from 1949 to 1999 and the r-largest method. This statistical downscaling procedure is found to yield skill over the southern and northern West Coast, central United States, and areas of western and eastern Canada when tested with independent data. The projected changes in covariates or predictors are obtained from transient climate change simulations conducted with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma) Coupled General Circulation Model, version 3.1 (CGCM3.1) forced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A2 forcing scenario. They are then used to derive the GEV distribution parameters for the period 2050–99. The projected frequency of the current 20-yr return maximum daily precipitation for that period suggests that extreme precipitation risk will increase heavily over the south and central United States but decrease over the Canadian prairies. The difference between the statistical downscaling results and those estimated using GCM simulation is also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 771-784
Author(s):  
Xunchang Zhang ◽  
Mingxi Shen ◽  
Jie Chen ◽  
Joel W. Homan ◽  
Phillip R. Busteed

HighlightsNine statistical downscaling methods from three downscaling categories were evaluated.Weather generator-based methods had advantages in simulating non-stationary precipitation.Differences in downscaling performance were smaller within each category than between categories.The performance of each downscaling method varied with climate conditions.Abstract. Spatial discrepancy between global climate model (GCM) projections and the climate data input required by hydrological models is a major limitation for assessing the impact of climate change on soil erosion and crop production at local scales. Statistical downscaling techniques are widely used to correct biases of GCM projections. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of nine statistical downscaling methods from three available statistical downscaling categories to simulate daily precipitation distribution, frequency, and temporal sequence at four Oklahoma weather stations representing arid to humid climate regions. The three downscaling categories included perfect prognosis (PP), model output statistics (MOS), and stochastic weather generator (SWG). To minimize the effect of GCM projection error on downscaling quality, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis 1 data at a 2.5° grid spacing (treated as observed grid data) were downscaled to the four weather stations (representing arid, semi-arid, sub humid, and humid regions) using the nine downscaling methods. The station observations were divided into calibration and validation periods in a way that maximized the differences in annual precipitation means between the two periods for assessing the ability of each method in downscaling non-stationary climate changes. All methods were ranked with three metrics (Euclidean distance, sum of absolute relative error, and absolute error) for their ability in simulating precipitation amounts at daily, monthly, yearly, and annual maximum scales. After eliminating the poorest two performers in simulating precipitation mean, distribution, frequency, and temporal sequence, the top four remaining methods in ascending order were Distribution-based Bias Correction (DBC), Generator for Point Climate Change (GPCC), SYNthetic weather generaTOR (SYNTOR), and LOCal Intensity scaling (LOCI). DBC and LOCI are bias-correction methods, and GPCC and SYNTOR are generator-based methods. The differences in performances among the downscaling methods were smaller within each downscaling category than between the categories. The performance of each method varied with the climate conditions of each station. Overall results indicated that the SWG methods had certain advantages in simulating daily precipitation distribution, frequency, and temporal sequence for non-stationary climate changes. Keywords: Climate change, Climate downscaling, Downscaling method evaluation, Statistical downscaling.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 2385-2406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Kun Hou ◽  
Hua Chen ◽  
Chong-Yu Xu ◽  
Jie Chen ◽  
Sheng-Lian Guo

Abstract Statistical downscaling is useful for managing scale and resolution problems in outputs from global climate models (GCMs) for climate change impact studies. To improve downscaling of precipitation occurrence, this study proposes a revised regression-based statistical downscaling method that couples a support vector classifier (SVC) and first-order two-state Markov chain to generate the occurrence and a support vector regression (SVR) to simulate the amount. The proposed method is compared to the Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM) for reproducing the temporal and quantitative distribution of observed precipitation using 10 meteorological indicators. Two types of calibration and validation methods were compared. The first method used sequential split sampling of calibration and validation periods, while the second used odd years for calibration and even years for validation. The proposed coupled approach outperformed the other methods in downscaling daily precipitation in all study periods using both calibration methods. Using odd years for calibration and even years for validation can reduce the influence of possible climate change–induced nonstationary data series. The study shows that it is necessary to combine different types of precipitation state classifiers with a method of regression or distribution to improve the performance of traditional statistical downscaling. These methods were applied to simulate future precipitation change from 2031 to 2100 with the CMIP5 climate variables. The results indicated increasing tendencies in both mean and maximum future precipitation predicted using all the downscaling methods evaluated. However, the proposed method is an at-site statistical downscaling method, and therefore this method will need to be modified for extension into a multisite domain.


Author(s):  
Myeong-Ho Yeo ◽  
Hoang-Lam Nguyen ◽  
Van-Thanh-Van Nguyen

Abstract The present study proposes a climate change assessment tool based on a statistical downscaling (SD) approach for describing the linkage between large-scale climate predictors and observed daily rainfall characteristics at a local site. The proposed SD of the daily rainfall process (SDRain) model is based on a combination of a logistic regression model for representing the daily rainfall occurrences and a nonlinear regression model for describing the daily precipitation amounts. A scaling factor (SR) and correction coefficient (CR) are suggested to improve the accuracy of the SDRain model in representing the variance of the observed daily precipitation amounts in each month without affecting the monthly mean precipitation. SDRain facilitates the construction of daily precipitation models for the current and future climate conditions. The tool is tested using the National Center for Environmental Prediction re-analysis data and the observed daily precipitation data available for the 1961–2001 period at two study sites located in two completely different climatic regions: the Seoul station in subtropical-climate Korea and the Dorval Airport station in cold-climate Canada. Results of this illustrative application have indicated that the proposed functions (e.g. logistic regression, SR, and CR) contribute marked improvement in describing daily precipitation amounts and occurrences. Furthermore, the comparison analyses show that the proposed SD method could provide more accurate results than those given by the currently popular SDSM method.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2109-2124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Baño-Medina ◽  
Rodrigo Manzanas ◽  
José Manuel Gutiérrez

Abstract. Deep learning techniques (in particular convolutional neural networks, CNNs) have recently emerged as a promising approach for statistical downscaling due to their ability to learn spatial features from huge spatiotemporal datasets. However, existing studies are based on complex models, applied to particular case studies and using simple validation frameworks, which makes a proper assessment of the (possible) added value offered by these techniques difficult. As a result, these models are usually seen as black boxes, generating distrust among the climate community, particularly in climate change applications. In this paper we undertake a comprehensive assessment of deep learning techniques for continental-scale statistical downscaling, building on the VALUE validation framework. In particular, different CNN models of increasing complexity are applied to downscale temperature and precipitation over Europe, comparing them with a few standard benchmark methods from VALUE (linear and generalized linear models) which have been traditionally used for this purpose. Besides analyzing the adequacy of different components and topologies, we also focus on their extrapolation capability, a critical point for their potential application in climate change studies. To do this, we use a warm test period as a surrogate for possible future climate conditions. Our results show that, while the added value of CNNs is mostly limited to the reproduction of extremes for temperature, these techniques do outperform the classic ones in the case of precipitation for most aspects considered. This overall good performance, together with the fact that they can be suitably applied to large regions (e.g., continents) without worrying about the spatial features being considered as predictors, can foster the use of statistical approaches in international initiatives such as Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX).


Author(s):  
Kanawut Chattrairat ◽  
Waranyu Wongseree ◽  
Adisorn Leelasantitham

The climate change which is essential for daily life and especially agriculture has been forecasted by global climate models (GCMs) in the past few years. Statistical downscaling method (SD) has been used to improve the GCMs and enables the projection of local climate. Many pieces of research have studied climate change in case of individually seasonal temperature and precipitation for simulation; however, regional difference has not been included in the calculation. In this research, four fundamental SDs, linear regression (LR), Gaussian process (GP), support vector machine (SVM) and deep learning (DL), are studied for daily maximum temperature (TMAX), daily minimum temperature (TMIN), and precipitation (PRCP) based on the statistical relationship between the larger-scale climate predictors and predictands in Thailand. Additionally, the data sets of climate variables from over 45 weather stations overall in Thailand are used to calculate in this calculation. The statistical analysis of two performance criteria (correlation and root mean square error (RMSE)) shows that the DL provides the best performance for simulation. The TMAX and TMIN were calculated and gave a similar trend for all models. PRCP results found that in the North and South are adequate and poor performance due to high and low precipitation, respectively. We illustrate that DL is one of the suitable models for the climate change problem.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 3413-3440 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. P. Maurer ◽  
H. G. Hidalgo

Abstract. Downscaling of climate model data is essential to most impact analysis. We compare two methods of statistical downscaling to produce continuous, gridded time series of precipitation and surface air temperature at a 1/8-degree (approximately 140 km² per grid cell) resolution over the western U.S. We use NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data from 1950–1999 as a surrogate General Circulation Model (GCM). The two methods included are constructed analogues (CA) and a bias correction and spatial downscaling (BCSD), both of which have been shown to be skillful in different settings, and BCSD has been used extensively in hydrologic impact analysis. Both methods use the coarse scale Reanalysis fields of precipitation and temperature as predictors of the corresponding fine scale fields. CA downscales daily large-scale data directly and BCSD downscales monthly data, with a random resampling technique to generate daily values. The methods produce comparable skill in producing downscaled, gridded fields of precipitation and temperatures at a monthly and seasonal level. For daily precipitation, both methods exhibit some skill in reproducing both observed wet and dry extremes and the difference between the methods is not significant, reflecting the general low skill in daily precipitation variability in the reanalysis data. For low temperature extremes, the CA method produces greater downscaling skill than BCSD for fall and winter seasons. For high temperature extremes, CA demonstrates higher skill than BCSD in summer. We find that the choice of most appropriate downscaling technique depends on the variables, seasons, and regions of interest, on the availability of daily data, and whether the day to day correspondence of weather from the GCM needs to be reproduced for some applications. The ability to produce skillful downscaled daily data depends primarily on the ability of the climate model to show daily skill.


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