scholarly journals Regression Models for Outlier Identification (Hurricanes and Typhoons) in Wave Hindcast Databases

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Mínguez ◽  
B. G. Reguero ◽  
A. Luceño ◽  
F. J. Méndez

Abstract The development of numerical wave prediction models for hindcast applications allows a detailed description of wave climate in locations where long-term instrumental records are not available. Wave hindcast databases (WHDBs) have become a powerful tool for the design of offshore and coastal structures, offering important advantages for the statistical characterization of wave climate all over the globe (continuous time series, wide spatial coverage, constant time span, homogeneous forcing, and more than 60-yr-long time series). However, WHDBs present several deficiencies reported in the literature. One of these deficiencies is related to typhoons and hurricanes, which are inappropriately reproduced by numerical models. The main reasons are (i) the difficulty of specifying accurate wind fields during these events and (ii) the insufficient spatiotemporal resolution used. These difficulties make the data related to these events appear as “outliers” when compared with instrumental records. These bad data distort results from calibration and/or correction techniques. In this paper, several methods for detecting the presence of typhoons and/or hurricane data are presented, and their automatic outlier identification capabilities are analyzed and compared. All the methods are applied to a global wave hindcast database and results are compared with existing hurricane and buoy databases in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and North Atlantic Ocean.

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 1466-1485 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Mínguez ◽  
A. Espejo ◽  
A. Tomás ◽  
F. J. Méndez ◽  
I. J. Losada

Abstract Wave reanalysis databases (WRDBs) offer important advantages for the statistical characterization of wave climate (continuous time series, good spatial coverage, constant time span, homogeneous forcing, and more than a 40-yr-long time series) and for this reason, they have become a powerful tool for the design of offshore and coastal structures. However, WRDBs are not quantitatively perfect and corrections using instrumental observations must be addressed before they are used; this process is called calibration. The calibration is especially relevant near the coast and in areas where the orography is complex, since in these places the inaccuracy of WRDB is evident because of the bad description of the wind fields (i.e., insufficient forcing resolution). The quantitative differences between numerical and instrumental data suggest that different corrections should be applied depending on the mean direction of the sea state. This paper proposes a calibration method based on a nonlinear regression problem, where the corresponding correction parameters vary smoothly along the possible wave directions by means of cubic splines. The correction of significant wave height is performed using instrumental data: (i) buoy records and/or (ii) satellite data. The performance of the method is illustrated considering data from different locations around Spain.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1929-1945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaël Zamo ◽  
Liliane Bel ◽  
Olivier Mestre ◽  
Joël Stein

Abstract Numerical weather forecast errors are routinely corrected through statistical postprocessing by several national weather services. These statistical postprocessing methods build a regression function called model output statistics (MOS) between observations and forecasts that is based on an archive of past forecasts and associated observations. Because of limited spatial coverage of most near-surface parameter measurements, MOS have been historically produced only at meteorological station locations. Nevertheless, forecasters and forecast users increasingly ask for improved gridded forecasts. The present work aims at building improved hourly wind speed forecasts over the grid of a numerical weather prediction model. First, a new observational analysis, which performs better in terms of statistical scores than those operationally used at Météo-France, is described as gridded pseudo-observations. This analysis, which is obtained by using an interpolation strategy that was selected among other alternative strategies after an intercomparison study conducted internally at Météo-France, is very parsimonious since it requires only two additive components, and it requires little computational resources. Then, several scalar regression methods are built and compared, using the new analysis as the observation. The most efficient MOS is based on random forests trained on blocks of nearby grid points. This method greatly improves forecasts compared with raw output of numerical weather prediction models. Furthermore, building each random forest on blocks and limiting those forests to shallow trees does not impair performance compared with unpruned and pointwise random forests. This alleviates the storage burden of the objects and speeds up operations.


Author(s):  
R. Giles Harrison ◽  
Edward Hanna

A solar eclipse provides a well-characterized reduction in solar radiation, of calculable amount and duration. This captivating natural astronomical phenomenon is ideally suited to science outreach activities, but the predictability of the change in solar radiation also provides unusual conditions for assessing the atmospheric response to a known stimulus. Modern automatic observing networks used for weather forecasting and atmospheric research have dense spatial coverage, so the quantitative meteorological responses to an eclipse can now be evaluated with excellent space and time resolution. Numerical models representing the atmosphere at high spatial resolution can also be used to predict eclipse-related changes and interpret the observations. Combining the models with measurements yields the elements of a controlled atmospheric experiment on a regional scale (10–1000 km), which is almost impossible to achieve by other means. This modern approach to ‘eclipse meteorology’ as identified here can ultimately improve weather prediction models and be used to plan for transient reductions in renewable electricity generation. During the 20 March 2015 eclipse, UK electrical energy demand increased by about 3 GWh (11 TJ) or about 4%, alongside reductions in the wind and photovoltaic electrical energy generation of 1.5 GWh (5.5 TJ). This article is part of the themed issue ‘Atmospheric effects of solar eclipses stimulated by the 2015 UK eclipse’.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 859
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bellotti ◽  
Leopoldo Franco ◽  
Claudia Cecioni

Hindcasted wind and wave data, available on a coarse resolution global grid (Copernicus ERA5 dataset), are downscaled by means of the numerical model SWAN (simulating waves in the nearshore) to produce time series of wave conditions at a high resolution along the Italian coasts in the central Tyrrhenian Sea. In order to achieve the proper spatial resolution along the coast, the finite element version of the model is used. Wave data time series at the ERA5 grid are used to specify boundary conditions for the wave model at the offshore sides of the computational domain. The wind field is fed to the model to account for local wave generation. The modeled sea states are compared against the multiple wave records available in the area, in order to calibrate and validate the model. The model results are in quite good agreement with direct measurements, both in terms of wave climate and wave extremes. The results show that using the present modeling chain, it is possible to build a reliable nearshore wave parameters database with high space resolution. Such a database, once prepared for coastal areas, possibly at the national level, can be of high value for many engineering activities related to coastal area management, and can be useful to provide fundamental information for the development of operational coastal services.


Author(s):  
Di Xian ◽  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Ling Gao ◽  
Ruijing Sun ◽  
Haizhen Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractFollowing the progress of satellite data assimilation in the 1990s, the combination of meteorological satellites and numerical models has changed the way scientists understand the earth. With the evolution of numerical weather prediction models and earth system models, meteorological satellites will play a more important role in earth sciences in the future. As part of the space-based infrastructure, the Fengyun (FY) meteorological satellites have contributed to earth science sustainability studies through an open data policy and stable data quality since the first launch of the FY-1A satellite in 1988. The capability of earth system monitoring was greatly enhanced after the second-generation polar orbiting FY-3 satellites and geostationary orbiting FY-4 satellites were developed. Meanwhile, the quality of the products generated from the FY-3 and FY-4 satellites is comparable to the well-known MODIS products. FY satellite data has been utilized broadly in weather forecasting, climate and climate change investigations, environmental disaster monitoring, etc. This article reviews the instruments mounted on the FY satellites. Sensor-dependent level 1 products (radiance data) and inversion algorithm-dependent level 2 products (geophysical parameters) are introduced. As an example, some typical geophysical parameters, such as wildfires, lightning, vegetation indices, aerosol products, soil moisture, and precipitation estimation have been demonstrated and validated by in-situ observations and other well-known satellite products. To help users access the FY products, a set of data sharing systems has been developed and operated. The newly developed data sharing system based on cloud technology has been illustrated to improve the efficiency of data delivery.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 208
Author(s):  
Valentina Vannucchi ◽  
Stefano Taddei ◽  
Valerio Capecchi ◽  
Michele Bendoni ◽  
Carlo Brandini

A 29-year wind/wave hindcast is produced over the Mediterranean Sea for the period 1990–2018. The dataset is obtained by downscaling the ERA5 global atmospheric reanalyses, which provide the initial and boundary conditions for a numerical chain based on limited-area weather and wave models: the BOLAM, MOLOCH and WaveWatch III (WW3) models. In the WW3 computational domain, an unstructured mesh is used. The variable resolutions reach up to 500 m along the coasts of the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas (Italy), the main objects of the study. The wind/wave hindcast is validated using observations from coastal weather stations and buoys. The wind validation provides velocity correlations between 0.45 and 0.76, while significant wave height correlations are much higher—between 0.89 and 0.96. The results are also compared to the original low-resolution ERA5 dataset, based on assimilated models. The comparison shows that the downscaling improves the hindcast reliability, particularly in the coastal regions, and especially with regard to wind and wave directions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre C. Kalia

<p>Landslide activity is an important information for landslide hazard assessment. However, an information gap regarding up to date landslide activity is often present. Advanced differential interferometric SAR processing techniques (A-DInSAR), e.g. Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) and Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) are able to measure surface displacements with high precision, large spatial coverage and high spatial sampling density. Although the huge amount of measurement points is clearly an improvement, the practical usage is mainly based on visual interpretation. This is time-consuming, subjective and error prone due to e.g. outliers. The motivation of this work is to increase the automatization with respect to the information extraction regarding landslide activity.</p><p>This study focuses on the spatial density of multiple PSI/SBAS results and a post-processing workflow to semi-automatically detect active landslides. The proposed detection of active landslides is based on the detection of Active Deformation Areas (ADA) and a subsequent classification of the time series. The detection of ADA consists of a filtering of the A-DInSAR data, a velocity threshold and a spatial clustering algorithm (Barra et al., 2017). The classification of the A-DInSAR time series uses a conditional sequence of statistical tests to classify the time series into a-priori defined deformation patterns (Berti et al., 2013). Field investigations and thematic data verify the plausibility of the results. Subsequently the classification results are combined to provide a layer consisting of ADA including information regarding the deformation pattern through time.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1229-1252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlye D. Peterson ◽  
Lorraine E. Lisiecki

Abstract. We present a compilation of 127 time series δ13C records from Cibicides wuellerstorfi spanning the last deglaciation (20–6 ka) which is well-suited for reconstructing large-scale carbon cycle changes, especially for comparison with isotope-enabled carbon cycle models. The age models for the δ13C records are derived from regional planktic radiocarbon compilations (Stern and Lisiecki, 2014). The δ13C records were stacked in nine different regions and then combined using volume-weighted averages to create intermediate, deep, and global δ13C stacks. These benthic δ13C stacks are used to reconstruct changes in the size of the terrestrial biosphere and deep ocean carbon storage. The timing of change in global mean δ13C is interpreted to indicate terrestrial biosphere expansion from 19–6 ka. The δ13C gradient between the intermediate and deep ocean, which we interpret as a proxy for deep ocean carbon storage, matches the pattern of atmospheric CO2 change observed in ice core records. The presence of signals associated with the terrestrial biosphere and atmospheric CO2 indicates that the compiled δ13C records have sufficient spatial coverage and time resolution to accurately reconstruct large-scale carbon cycle changes during the glacial termination.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satish Samayam ◽  
Valentina Laface ◽  
Sannasiraj Sannasi Annamalaisamy ◽  
Felice Arena ◽  
Sundar Vallam ◽  
...  

Abstract. Extreme waves influence coastal engineering activities and have an immense geophysical implication. Therefore, their study, observation and extreme wave prediction are decisive for planning of mitigation measures against natural coastal hazards, ship routing, design of coastal and offshore structures. In this study, the estimates of design wave heights associated with return period of 30 and 100 years are dealt with in detail. The design wave height is estimated based on four different models to obtain a general and reliable model. Different locations are considered to perform the analysis: four sites in Indian waters (two each in Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea), one in the Mediterranean Sea and two in North America (one each in North Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Maine). For the Indian water domain, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) global atmospheric reanalysis ERA-Interim wave hindcast data covering a period of 36 years have been utilized for this purpose. For the locations in Mediterranean Sea and North America, both ERA-Interim wave hindcast and buoy data are considered. The reasons for the variation in return value estimates of the ERA-Interim data and the buoy data using different estimation models are assessed in detail.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 955-976 ◽  
Author(s):  
DongSoon Park ◽  
Tadahiro Kishida

It is important to investigate strong-motion time series recorded at dams to understand their complex seismic responses. This paper develops a strong-motion database recorded at existing embankment dams and analyzes correlations between dam dynamic responses and ground-motion parameters. The Japan Commission on Large Dams database used here includes 190 recordings at the crests and foundations of 60 dams during 54 earthquakes from 1978 to 2012. Seismic amplifications and fundamental periods from recorded time series were computed and examined by correlation with shaking intensities and dam geometries. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) at the dam crest increases as the PGA at the foundation bedrock increases, but their ratio gradually decreases. The fundamental period broadly increases with the dam height and PGA at the foundation bedrock. The nonlinear dam response becomes more apparent as the PGA at the foundation bedrock becomes >0.2 g. The prediction models of these correlations are proposed for estimating the seismic response of embankment dams, which can inform the preliminary design stage.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document