scholarly journals A Quality-Control and Bias-Correction Method Developed for Irregularly Spaced Time Series of Observational Pressure Data

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1317-1323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Sperka ◽  
Reinhold Steinacker

Abstract This paper presents a method to detect and correct occurring biases in observational mean sea level pressure (MSLP) data, which was developed within the Mesoscale Alpine Climate Dataset [MESOCLIM; i.e., 3-hourly MSLP, potential and equivalent potential temperature Vienna Enhanced Resolution Analysis (VERA) analyses for a 3000 km × 3000 km area centered over the Alps during 1971–2005] project. There are many reasons for a change of a measurement site’s performance, for example, a change in the instrumentation, a slight modification of the site’s place or position, or a different way of data processing (pressure reduction). To get an estimate for these artificial influences in the data, deviations for each reporting station at each point of time were calculated, using a piecewise functional fitting approach that is based on a variational algorithm. In this algorithm first- and second-order spatial derivatives are minimized using the tested stations neighbor stations and furthermore their neighbors. The resulting time series of deviations for each station were then tested with a “standard normal homogeneity test” to detect changes in the mean deviation. With the knowledge of these “break points,” bias-correction estimates for each station were calculated. These correction estimates are constant between the detected break points because the method does not detect different slopes in trends. Application of these correction estimates yields in smoother fields and a more homogenous distribution of trends.

Author(s):  
Bekan Chelkeba Tumsa

Abstract Selecting a suitable bias correction method is important to provide reliable inputs for evaluation of climate change impact. Their influence was studied by comparing three discharge outputs from the SWAT model. The result after calibration with original RCM indicate that the raw RCM are heavily biased, and lead to streamflow simulation with large biases (NSE = 0.1, R2 = 0.53, MAE = 5.91 mm/°C, and PBIAS = 0.51). Power transformation and linear scaling methods performed best in correcting the frequency-based indices, while the LS method performed best in terms of the time series-based indices (NSE = 0.87, R2 = 0.78, MAE = 3.14 mm/°C, PBIAS = 0.24) during calibration. Meanwhile, daily translation was underestimating simulated streamflow compared with observed and considered as the least performing method. Precipitation correction method has higher visual influence than temperature, and its performance in streamflow simulations was consistent and significantly considerable. Power transformation and variance scaling showed highly qualified performance compared to others with indicated time series value (NSE = 0.92, R2 = 0.88, MAE = 1.58 mm/°C and PBIAS = 0.12) during calibration and validation of streamflow. Hence, PT and VARI methods were the dominant methods which remove biasness from RCM models at Akaki River basin.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda García-Marín ◽  
Javier Estévez ◽  
Renato Morbidelli ◽  
Carla Saltalippi ◽  
José Ayuso-Muñoz ◽  
...  

Testing the homogeneity in extreme rainfall data series is an important step to be performed before applying the frequency analysis method to obtain quantile values. In this work, six homogeneity tests were applied in order to check the existence of break points in extreme annual 24-h rainfall data at eight stations located in the Umbria region (Central Italy). Two are parametric tests (the standard normal homogeneity test and Buishand test) whereas the other four are non-parametric (the Pettitt, Sequential Mann–Kendal, Mann–Whitney U, and Cumulative Sum tests). No break points were detected at four of the stations analyzed. Where inhomogeneities were found, the multifractal approach was applied in order to check if they were real or not by comparing the split and whole data series. The generalized fractal dimension functions Dq and the multifractal spectra f(α) were obtained, and their main parameters were used to decide whether or not a break point existed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Toreti ◽  
Franz G. Kuglitsch ◽  
Elena Xoplaki ◽  
Jürg Luterbacher

AbstractSudden changes caused by nonclimatic factors (inhomogeneities) usually affect instrumental time series of climate variables. To perform robust climate analyses based on observations, a proper identification of such changes is necessary. Here, an approach (named the “GAHMDI” method, after its components and purpose) that is based on a genetic algorithm and hidden Markov models is proposed for detection of inhomogeneities caused by changes in the mean and variance. Simulated series and a case study (winter precipitation from a weather station located in Milan, Italy) are set up to compare GAHMDI with existing methodologies and to highlight its features. For the identification of a single changepoint, GAHMDI performs similarly to other methods (e.g., standard normal homogeneity test). However, for the identification of multiple inhomogeneities and changes in variance, GAHMDI returns better results than three widespread methods by avoiding overdetection. For future applications and research in the homogenization of climate datasets (temperature and precipitation) the use of GAHMDI is encouraged, preferably in combination with another detection procedure (e.g., the method of Caussinus and Mestre) when metadata are not available. Since GAHMDI is developed in the generic context of time series segmentation, it can be applied to series of generic variables—for instance, those related to economics, biology, and informatics.


2007 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 916-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaolan L. Wang ◽  
Qiuzi H. Wen ◽  
Yuehua Wu

Abstract In this paper, a penalized maximal t test (PMT) is proposed for detecting undocumented mean shifts in climate data series. PMT takes the relative position of each candidate changepoint into account, to diminish the effect of unequal sample sizes on the power of detection. Monte Carlo simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the performance of PMT, in comparison with the most popularly used method, the standard normal homogeneity test (SNHT). An application of the two methods to atmospheric pressure series recorded at a Canadian site is also presented. It is shown that the false-alarm rate of PMT is very close to the specified level of significance and is evenly distributed across all candidate changepoints, whereas that of SNHT can be up to 10 times the specified level for points near the ends of series and much lower for the middle points. In comparison with SNHT, therefore, PMT has higher power for detecting all changepoints that are not too close to the ends of series and lower power for detecting changepoints that are near the ends of series. On average, however, PMT has significantly higher power of detection. The smaller the shift magnitude Δ is relative to the noise standard deviation σ, the greater is the improvement of PMT over SNHT. The improvement in hit rate can be as much as 14%–25% for detecting small shifts (Δ < σ) regardless of time series length and up to 5% for detecting medium shifts (Δ = σ–1.5σ) in time series of length N < 100. For all detectable shift sizes, the largest improvement is always obtained when N < 100, which is of great practical importance, because most annual climate data series are of length N < 100.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 662
Author(s):  
Henderson Silva Wanderley ◽  
André Luiz de Carvalho ◽  
Ronabson Cardoso Fernandes ◽  
José Leonaldo de Souza

Compreender como as alterações no clima têm modificado a temperatura do ar e a precipitação pluvial de uma região é essencial, sobretudo para regiões como o Nordeste brasileiro, que apresentam vasto histórico de secas e altas temperaturas. No entanto, estudos com esse fim são escassos ou até mesmo inexistentes para essa região. Deste modo, objetivou-se identificar mudanças ocorridas no regime temporal da temperatura diurna e noturna e na precipitação na região de Rio Largo, Alagoas. Para isto, utilizaram-se dados de temperatura diurna (máxima) e noturna (mínima) compreendidos entre 1973 e 2002, e de precipitação dispostos entre 1973 e 2008. As séries temporais foram submetidas ao teste estatístico SNHT (Standard Normal Homogeneity Test) para identificar possíveis pontos de mudança na média. A análise de regressão linear simples foi utilizada para identificar alterações nas séries temporais, testada por meio do teste t de Student, adotando-se nível de significância estatística de 0,05%, para ambos os testes estatísticos. A análise mostrou que as temperaturas demostraram pontos de mudanças significativos, no entanto, foi observada uma defasagem de quase dez anos entre os pontos. A tendência identificada entre as temperaturas foram opostas entre si, sendo de aumento para a temperatura diurna e de redução para a noturna. A precipitação demostrou tendência de redução, no entanto, não apresentou mudança estatística significativa.  ABSTRACTUnderstanding how changes in climate have changed air temperature and rainfall in a region is essential, especially for regions such as the Brazilian Northeast, which have long history of drought and high temperatures. However, studies for this purpose are scarce or even nonexistent for this region. Thus, this study aimed to identify changes in the temporal regime of daytime and nighttime temperature and rainfall in the region of Rio Largo, Alagoas, Brazil. For this, it was used data of daytime temperature (maximum) and night (minimum) ranging from 1973 to 2002, and rainfall arranged between 1973 and 2008. Time series were submitted to SNHT (Standard Normal Homogeneity Test) statistical test to identify possible change point in average. A simple linear regression analysis was used to identify changes in time series, tested using the Student t test, adopting a significance level of 0.05%, for both statistical tests. The analysis showed that temperatures demonstrated significant change points, however, there was a gap of almost ten years between the points. The trend identified among the temperatures was opposed to each other, with increasing daytime temperature and reduction of nighttime temperature. Rainfall demonstrated trend of reducing, however, showed no statistically significant change.Keywords: daytime and nighttime temperature, SNHT, trend, change point. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 999-1013
Author(s):  
Sina Nabaei ◽  
Bahram Saghafian

Abstract Geoscientists are continuously confronted by difficulties involved in handling varieties of data formats. Configuration of data only in time or space domains leads to the use of multiple stand-alone software in the spatio-temporal analysis which is a time-consuming approach. In this paper, the concept of cellular time series (CTS) and three types of meta data are introduced to improve the handling of CTS in the spatio-temporal analysis. The data structure was designed via Python programming language; however, the structure could also be implemented by other languages (e.g., R and MATLAB). We used this concept in the hydro-meteorological discipline. In our application, CTS of monthly precipitation was generated by employing data of 102 stations across Iran. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall trend test and change point detection techniques, including Pettitt's test, standard normal homogeneity test, and the Buishand range test were applied on the generated CTS. Results revealed a negative annual trend in the eastern parts, as well as being sporadically spread over the southern and western parts of the country. Furthermore, the year 1998 was detected as a significant change year in the eastern and southern regions of Iran. The proposed structure may be used by geoscientists and data providers for straightforward simultaneous spatio-temporal analysis.


2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 630-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Toreti ◽  
F. G. Kuglitsch ◽  
E. Xoplaki ◽  
P. M. Della-Marta ◽  
E. Aguilar ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Shingo Obata ◽  
Chris J. Cieszewski ◽  
Roger C. Lowe III ◽  
Pete Bettinger

The forest volumes are essential as they are directly related to the economic and environmental values of the forests. Satellite-based forest volume estimation was first developed in the 1990s, and the accuracy of the estimation has been improved over time. One of the satellite-based forest volume estimation issues is that it tends to overestimate the large volume class and underestimate the small volume class. Free availability of the major satellite imagery and the development of cloud-based computational platforms facilitate an immense amount of satellite imagery in the estimation. In this paper, we set three objectives: (1) to examine whether the long Landsat time series contributes to the improvement of the estimation accuracy, (2) to explore the effectiveness of forest disturbance record and land cover data as ancillary spatial data on the accuracy of the estimation, and (3) to apply the bias correction method to reduce the bias of the estimation. We computed three Tasseled-cap components from the Landsat data for preparation of short (2014–2016) and long (1984–2016) time series. Each data entity was analyzed with harmonic regressions resulting in the coefficients and the fitted values recorded as pixel values in a multilayer raster database. Data included Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) unit field inventory measurements provided by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the National Land Cover Database and disturbance history data added as ancillary information. The totality of the available data was organized into seven distinct Random Forest (RF) models with different variables compared against each other to identify the ones with the most satisfactory performance. A bias correction method was then applied to all the RF models to examine the effectiveness of the method. Among the seven models, the worst one used the coefficients and fitted values of the short Landsat time series only, and the best one used coefficients and fitted values of both short and long Landsat time series. Using the Out-of-bag (OOB) score, the best model was found to be 34.4% better than the worst one. The model that used only the long time series data had almost the same OOB score as the best model. The results indicate that the use of the long Landsat time series improves model performance. Contrary to the previous research employing forest disturbance data as a feature variable had almost no effect on OOB. The bias correction method reduced the relative size of the bias in the estimates of the best model from 3.79% to −1.47%, the bottom 10% bias by 12.5 points, and the top 10% bias by 9.9 points. Depending on the types of forest, important feature variables were differed, reflecting the relationship between the time series remote sensing data we computed for this research and the forests’ phenological characteristics. The availability of Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data and accessibility of the precise locations of the FIA data are likely to improve the model estimates further.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herdis M. Gjelten ◽  
Øyvind Nordli ◽  
Arne A. Grimenes ◽  
Elin Lundstad

Abstract Homogeneity is important when analyzing climatic long-term time series. This is to ensure that the variability in the time series is not affected by changes such as station relocations, instrumentation changes and changes in the surroundings. The subject of this study is a long-term temperature series from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Ås in Southern Norway, located in a rural area about 30 km south of Oslo. Different methods for calculation of monthly mean temperature were studied and new monthly means were calculated before the homogeneity testing was performed. The statistical method used for the testing was the Standard Normal Homogeneity Test (SNHT) by Hans Alexandersson. Five breaks caused by relocations and changes in instrumentation were identified. The seasonal adjustments of the breaks lay between -0.4°C and +0.5°C. Comparison with two other homogenized temperature series in the Oslo fjord region showed similar linear trends, which suggests that the long-term linear temperature trends in the Oslo fjord region are not much affected by spatial climate variation.


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