scholarly journals Multivariate—Intervariable, Spatial, and Temporal—Bias Correction*

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Vrac ◽  
Petra Friederichs
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
Temperature Fields ◽  
Empirical Copula ◽  
Regional Climate Model Output ◽  
Corrected Data ◽  
Temporal Dependencies

Abstract Statistical methods to bias correct global or regional climate model output are now common to get data closer to observations in distribution. However, most bias correction (BC) methods work for one variable and one location at a time and basically reproduce the temporal structure of the models. The intervariable, spatial, and temporal dependencies of the corrected data are usually poor compared to observations. Here, the authors propose a novel method for multivariate BC. The empirical copula–bias correction (EC–BC) combines a one-dimensional BC with a shuffling technique that restores an empirical multidimensional copula. Several BC methods are investigated and compared to high-resolution reference data over the French Mediterranean basin: notably, (i) a 1D BC method applied independently to precipitation and temperature fields, (ii) a recent conditional correction approach developed for producing correct two-dimensional intervariable structures, and (iii) the EC–BC method. Assessments are realized in terms of intervariable, spatial, and temporal dependencies, and an objective evaluation using the integrated quadratic distance (IQD) is presented. As expected, the 1D methods cannot produce correct multidimensional properties. The conditional technique appears efficient for intervariable properties but not for spatial and temporal dependencies. EC–BC provides realistic dependencies in all respects: intervariable, spatial, and temporal. The IQD results are clearly in favor of EC–BC. As many BC methods, EC–BC relies on a stationarity assumption and is only able to reproduce patterns inherited from historical data. However, because of its ease of coding, its speed of application, and the quality of its results, the EC–BC method is a very good candidate for all needs in multivariate bias correction.

scholarly journals Multivariate bias corrections of climate simulations: Which benefits for which losses?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien François ◽  
Mathieu Vrac ◽  
Alex J. Cannon ◽  
Yoann Robin ◽  
Denis Allard
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Dimensional Changes ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Corrected Data ◽  
Temporal Dependencies

Abstract. Climate models are the major tools to estimate climate variables evolutions in the future. However, climate simulations often present statistical biases and have to be corrected against observations before being used in impact assessments. Several bias correction (BC) methods have therefore been developed in the literature over the last two decades, in order to adjust simulations according to historical records and obtain climate projections with appropriate statistical attributes. Most of the existing and popular BC methods are univariate, i.e., correcting one physical variable and one location at a time, and thus can fail to reconstruct inter-variable, spatial or temporal dependencies of the observations. These remaining biases in the correction can then affect the subsequent analyses. This has led to further research on multivariate aspects for statistical post-processing BC methods. Recently, some multivariate bias correction (MBC) methods have been proposed, with different approaches to restore multidimensional dependencies. However, these methods are not well apprehended yet by researchers and practitioners due to differences in their applicability and assumptions, therefore leading potentially to different results. This study is intended to intercompare four existing MBCs to provide end-users with aid in choosing such methods for their applications. For evaluation and illustration purposes, these methods are applied to correct simulation outputs from one climate model through a cross-validation methodology, which allows for the assessment of inter-variable, spatial and temporal criteria. Then, a second methodology is performed for assessing the ability of the MBC methods to account for the multi-dimensional evolutions of the climate model. Additionally, two reference datasets are used to assess the influence of their spatial resolution on (M)BC results. Most of the methods reasonably correct inter-variable and inter-site correlations. However, none of them adjust correctly the temporal structure as they generate bias corrected data with usually weak temporal dependencies compared to observations. Major differences are found concerning the applicability and stability of the methods in high-dimensional contexts, and in their capability to reproduce the multi-dimensional changes of the model. Based on these conclusions, perspectives for MBC developments are suggested, such as methods to adjust not only multivariate correlations but also temporal structures and allowing to account for multi-dimensional evolutions of the model in the correction.

scholarly journals Bias Correction, Quantile Mapping, and Downscaling: Revisiting the Inflation Issue

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 2137-2143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Maraun
Keyword(s):  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Daily Precipitation ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Quantile Mapping ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Scale Mismatch ◽  
Climate Model Simulations

Abstract Quantile mapping is routinely applied to correct biases of regional climate model simulations compared to observational data. If the observations are of similar resolution as the regional climate model, quantile mapping is a feasible approach. However, if the observations are of much higher resolution, quantile mapping also attempts to bridge this scale mismatch. Here, it is shown for daily precipitation that such quantile mapping–based downscaling is not feasible but introduces similar problems as inflation of perfect prognosis (“prog”) downscaling: the spatial and temporal structure of the corrected time series is misrepresented, the drizzle effect for area means is overcorrected, area-mean extremes are overestimated, and trends are affected. To overcome these problems, stochastic bias correction is required.

Multivariate Bias Correction of Climate Simulations: an Intercomparison Study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien François ◽  
Mathieu Vrac ◽  
Alex Cannon ◽  
Yoann Robin ◽  
Denis Allard
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Dimensional Changes ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Intercomparison Study ◽  
Temporal Dependencies

<p>Climate models are the major tools to estimate climate variables evolutions in the future. However, climate simulations often present statistical biases and have to be corrected against observations before being used in impact assessments. Several bias correction (BC) methods have therefore been developed in the literature over the last two decades, in order to adjust simulations according to historical records and obtain climate projections with appropriate statistical attributes. Most of the existing and popular BC methods are univariate, i.e., correcting one physical variable and one location at a time, and thus can fail to reconstruct inter-variable, spatial or temporal dependencies of the observations. These remaining biases in the correction can then affect the subsequent analyses. This has led to further research on multivariate aspects for statistical postprocessing BC methods. Recently, some multivariate bias correction (MBC) methods have been proposed, with different approaches to restore multidimensional dependencies. However, these methods are not well apprehended yet by researchers and practitioners due to differences in their applicability and assumptions, therefore leading potentially to different results. This study is intended to intercompare four existing MBCs to provide end-users with aid in choosing such methods for their applications. For evaluation and illustration purposes, these methods are applied to correct simulation outputs from one climate model through a cross-validation methodology, which allows for the assessment of inter-variable, spatial and temporal criteria. Then, a second methodology is performed for assessing the ability of the MBC methods to account for the multi-dimensional evolutions of the climate model. Additionally, two reference datasets are used to assess the influence of their spatial resolution on (M)BC results. Most of the methods reasonably correct inter-variable and inter-site correlations. However, none of them adjust correctly the temporal structure as they generate bias corrected data with usually weak temporal dependencies compared to observations. Major differences are found concerning the applicability and stability of the methods in high-dimensional contexts, and in their capability to reproduce the multi-dimensional changes of the model. Based on those conclusions, perspectives for MBC developments are suggested, such as methods to adjust not only multivariate correlations but also temporal structures and allowing to account for multi-dimensional evolutions of the model in the correction.</p>

scholarly journals Multivariate bias corrections of climate simulations: which benefits for which losses?

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 537-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien François ◽  
Mathieu Vrac ◽  
Alex J. Cannon ◽  
Yoann Robin ◽  
Denis Allard
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Cross Validation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Validation Method ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Temporal Dependencies

Abstract. Climate models are the major tools to study the climate system and its evolutions in the future. However, climate simulations often present statistical biases and have to be corrected against observations before being used in impact assessments. Several bias correction (BC) methods have therefore been developed in the literature over the last 2 decades, in order to adjust simulations according to historical records and obtain climate projections with appropriate statistical attributes. Most of the existing and popular BC methods are univariate, i.e., correcting one physical variable and one location at a time and, thus, can fail to reconstruct inter-variable, spatial or temporal dependencies of the observations. These remaining biases in the correction can then affect the subsequent analyses. This has led to further research on multivariate aspects for statistical postprocessing BC methods. Recently, some multivariate bias correction (MBC) methods have been proposed, with different approaches to restore multidimensional dependencies. However, these methods are not yet fully apprehended by researchers and practitioners due to differences in their applicability and assumptions, therefore leading potentially to different results. This study is intended to intercompare four existing MBCs to provide end users with aid in choosing such methods for their applications. For evaluation and illustration purposes, these methods are applied to correct simulation outputs from one climate model through a cross-validation method, which allows for the assessment of inter-variable, spatial and temporal criteria. Then, a second cross-validation method is performed for assessing the ability of the MBC methods to account for the multidimensional evolutions of the climate model. Additionally, two reference datasets are used to assess the influence of their spatial resolution on (M)BC results. Most of the methods reasonably correct inter-variable and intersite correlations. However, none of them adjust correctly the temporal structure as they generate bias-corrected data with usually weak temporal dependencies compared to observations. Major differences are found concerning the applicability and stability of the methods in high-dimensional contexts and in their capability to reproduce the multidimensional changes in the model. Based on these conclusions, perspectives for MBC developments are suggested, such as methods to adjust not only multivariate correlations but also temporal structures and allowing multidimensional evolutions of the model to be accounted for in the correction.

scholarly journals Projecting Health Impacts of Future Temperature: A Comparison of Quantile-Mapping Bias-Correction Methods

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1992
Author(s):  
Weijia Qian ◽  
Howard H. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Quantile Mapping ◽  
Ed Visits

Health impact assessments of future environmental exposures are routinely conducted to quantify population burdens associated with the changing climate. It is well-recognized that simulations from climate models need to be bias-corrected against observations to estimate future exposures. Quantile mapping (QM) is a technique that has gained popularity in climate science because of its focus on bias-correcting the entire exposure distribution. Even though improved bias-correction at the extreme tails of exposure may be particularly important for estimating health burdens, the application of QM in health impact projection has been limited. In this paper we describe and apply five QM methods to estimate excess emergency department (ED) visits due to projected changes in warm-season minimum temperature in Atlanta, USA. We utilized temperature projections from an ensemble of regional climate models in the North American-Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (NA-CORDEX). Across QM methods, we estimated consistent increase in ED visits across climate model ensemble under RCP 8.5 during the period 2050 to 2099. We found that QM methods can significantly reduce between-model variation in health impact projections (50–70% decreases in between-model standard deviation). Particularly, the quantile delta mapping approach had the largest reduction and is recommended also because of its ability to preserve model-projected absolute temporal changes in quantiles.

scholarly journals Multivariate bias adjustment of high-dimensional climate simulations: the Rank Resampling for Distributions and Dependences (R<sup>2</sup>D<sup>2</sup>) bias correction

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 3175-3196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Vrac
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Dependence Structure ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Site Dependence

Abstract. Climate simulations often suffer from statistical biases with respect to observations or reanalyses. It is therefore common to correct (or adjust) those simulations before using them as inputs into impact models. However, most bias correction (BC) methods are univariate and so do not account for the statistical dependences linking the different locations and/or physical variables of interest. In addition, they are often deterministic, and stochasticity is frequently needed to investigate climate uncertainty and to add constrained randomness to climate simulations that do not possess a realistic variability. This study presents a multivariate method of rank resampling for distributions and dependences (R2D2) bias correction allowing one to adjust not only the univariate distributions but also their inter-variable and inter-site dependence structures. Moreover, the proposed R2D2 method provides some stochasticity since it can generate as many multivariate corrected outputs as the number of statistical dimensions (i.e., number of grid cell  ×  number of climate variables) of the simulations to be corrected. It is based on an assumption of stability in time of the dependence structure – making it possible to deal with a high number of statistical dimensions – that lets the climate model drive the temporal properties and their changes in time. R2D2 is applied on temperature and precipitation reanalysis time series with respect to high-resolution reference data over the southeast of France (1506 grid cell). Bivariate, 1506-dimensional and 3012-dimensional versions of R2D2 are tested over a historical period and compared to a univariate BC. How the different BC methods behave in a climate change context is also illustrated with an application to regional climate simulations over the 2071–2100 period. The results indicate that the 1d-BC basically reproduces the climate model multivariate properties, 2d-R2D2 is only satisfying in the inter-variable context, 1506d-R2D2 strongly improves inter-site properties and 3012d-R2D2 is able to account for both. Applications of the proposed R2D2 method to various climate datasets are relevant for many impact studies. The perspectives of improvements are numerous, such as introducing stochasticity in the dependence itself, questioning its stability assumption, and accounting for temporal properties adjustment while including more physics in the adjustment procedures.

scholarly journals A novel bias correction methodology for climate impact simulations

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1999-2042 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Sippel ◽  
F. E. L. Otto ◽  
M. Forkel ◽  
M. R. Allen ◽  
B. P. Guillod ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Correlation Structure ◽  
Terrestrial Biosphere ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem Model ◽  
Multivariate Correlation ◽  
Impact Simulations

Abstract. Understanding, quantifying and attributing the impacts of extreme weather and climate events in the terrestrial biosphere is crucial for societal adaptation in a changing climate. However, climate model simulations generated for this purpose typically exhibit biases in their output that hinders any straightforward assessment of impacts. To overcome this issue, various bias correction strategies are routinely used to alleviate climate model deficiencies most of which have been criticized for physical inconsistency and the non-preservation of the multivariate correlation structure. In this study, we introduce a novel, resampling-based bias correction scheme that fully preserves the physical consistency and multivariate correlation structure of the model output. This procedure strongly improves the representation of climatic extremes and variability in a large regional climate model ensemble (HadRM3P, climateprediction.net/weatherathome), which is illustrated for summer extremes in temperature and rainfall over Central Europe. Moreover, we simulate biosphere–atmosphere fluxes of carbon and water using a terrestrial ecosystem model (LPJmL) driven by the bias corrected climate forcing. The resampling-based bias correction yields strongly improved statistical distributions of carbon and water fluxes, including the extremes. Our results thus highlight the importance to carefully consider statistical moments beyond the mean for climate impact simulations. In conclusion, the present study introduces an approach to alleviate climate model biases in a physically consistent way and demonstrates that this yields strongly improved simulations of climate extremes and associated impacts in the terrestrial biosphere. A wider uptake of our methodology by the climate and impact modelling community therefore seems desirable for accurately quantifying past, current and future extremes.

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