Modeling Community Health with Areal Data: Bayesian Inference with Survey Standard Errors and Spatial Structure

Epidemiologists and health geographers routinely use small-area survey estimates as covariates to model areal and even individual health outcomes. American Community Survey (ACS) estimates are accompanied by standard errors (SEs), but it is not yet standard practice to use them for evaluating or modeling data reliability. ACS SEs vary systematically across regions, neighborhoods, socioeconomic characteristics, and variables. Failure to consider probable observational error may have substantial impact on the large bodies of literature relying on small-area estimates, including inferential biases and over-confidence in results. The issue is particularly salient for predictive models employed to prioritize communities for service provision or funding allocation. Leveraging the tenets of plausible reasoning and Bayes’ theorem, we propose a conceptual framework and workflow for spatial data analysis with areal survey data, including visual diagnostics and model specifications. To illustrate, we follow Krieger et al.’s (2018) call to routinely use the Index of Concentration at the Extremes (ICE) to monitor spatial inequalities in health and mortality. We construct and examine SEs for the ICE, use visual diagnostics to evaluate our observational error model for the ICE, and then estimate an ICE–mortality gradient by incorporating the latter model into our model of sex-specific, midlife (ages 55–64), all-cause United States county mortality rates. We urge researchers to consider data quality as a criterion for variable selection prior to modeling, and to incorporate data reliability information into their models whenever possible.

Assimilation of Satellite-retrieved Sea Ice Concentration and Prospects for September Predictions of Arctic Sea Ice

The current GFDL seasonal prediction system achieved retrospective sea ice extent (SIE) skill without direct sea ice data assimilation. Here we develop sea ice data assimilation, shown to be a key source of skill for seasonal sea ice predictions, in GFDL’s next generation prediction system, the Seamless System for Prediction and Earth System Research (SPEAR). Satellite sea-ice concentration (SIC) observations are assimilated into the GFDL Sea Ice Simulator version 2 (SIS2) using the ensemble adjustment Kalman filter (EAKF). Sea ice physics is perturbed to form an ensemble of ice-ocean members with atmospheric forcing from the JRA-55 reanalysis. Assimilation is performed every 5 days from 1982 to 2017 and the evaluation is conducted at pan-Arctic and regional scales over the same period. To mitigate an assimilation overshoot problem and improve the analysis, sea surface temperatures (SST) are restored to the daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature version 2 (OISSTv2). The combination of SIC assimilation and SST restoring reduces analysis errors to the observational error level (∼10%) from up to 3 times larger than this (∼30%) in the free-running model. Sensitivity experiments show that the choice of assimilation localization half-width (190km) is near optimal and that SIC analysis errors can be further reduced slightly either by reducing the observational error or by increasing the assimilation frequency from 5-daily to daily. A lagged-correlation analysis suggests substantial prediction skill improvements from SIC initialization at lead times of less than 2 months.

Computing the Average Body Mass Index: A Study with Systematic Sampling Using Auxiliary Information

Background: The use of body mass index (BMI) could lead to over/under estimation of fat mass percentage. Systematic sampling is to be applied only if the given population is logically homogeneous, because systematic sample units are uniformly distributed over the population. The method of estimation for mean of the study variable under systematic sampling using auxiliary information has been proposed to estimate the body mass index (BMI).Methods: The measures of different body parts are taken as auxiliary variables. The observation available on different body parts are assumed to be recorded with observational error. Thus we also propose method of estimation for mean in the presence of observational error. Numerical study has been done to reveal the efficacy of the proposed procedure for estimation of mean. Simulation study has also been done to demonstrate the effect of observational error on the estimation of body mass index.Results: The properties of the proposed estimation method have been derived under large sampling approximation and obtained the conditions under which proposed method are more efficient. Conclusions: The study provides an easy approach and simplest way to obtain the BMI estimate with and without observational error. Thus the suggested method may be used by statistician for this problem and for many others similar problem in the estimation of mean.

The flyby anomaly and the gravitational–magnetic field induced frame-dragging effect around the Earth

ABSTRACT The anomalous energy difference observed during the Earth flybys is modelled here as a dynamical effect resulting from the coupling of the gravitational and the magnetic fields of the Earth. The theoretical analysis shows that general relativistic frame-dragging can become modified under the Earth’s magnetic field by orders of magnitude. For 12 flyby cases, including the null results reported in some recent flybys, the predicted velocities correspond to the observed velocities within the observational error. The gravitomagnetic effect is also shown to account for the linear distance relation, time-variation of the anomalous energy, and the reduction in the anomalous velocity for high-altitude flybys near the Earth.

Data assimilation of radar reflectivity volumes in a LETKF scheme

Quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) is still a challenge for numerical weather prediction (NWP), despite the continuous improvement of models and data assimilation systems. In this regard, the assimilation of radar reflectivity volumes should be beneficial, since the accuracy of analysis is the element that most affects short-term QPFs. Up to now, few attempts have been made to assimilate these observations in an operational set-up, due to the large amount of computational resources needed and due to several open issues, like the rise of imbalances in the analyses and the estimation of the observational error. In this work, we evaluate the impact of the assimilation of radar reflectivity volumes employing a local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF), implemented for the convection-permitting model of the COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling (COSMO). A 4-day test case on February 2017 is considered and the verification of QPFs is performed using the fractions skill score (FSS) and the SAL technique, an object-based method which allows one to decompose the error in precipitation fields in terms of structure (S), amplitude (A) and location (L). Results obtained assimilating both conventional data and radar reflectivity volumes are compared to those of the operational system of the Hydro-Meteo-Climate Service of the Emilia-Romagna Region (Arpae-SIMC), in which only conventional observations are employed and latent heat nudging (LHN) is applied using surface rainfall intensity (SRI) estimated from the Italian radar network data. The impact of assimilating reflectivity volumes using LETKF in combination or not with LHN is assessed. Furthermore, some sensitivity tests are performed to evaluate the effects of the length of the assimilation window and of the reflectivity observational error (roe). Moreover, balance issues are assessed in terms of kinetic energy spectra and providing some examples of how these affect prognostic fields. Results show that the assimilation of reflectivity volumes has a positive impact on QPF accuracy in the first few hours of forecast, both when it is combined with LHN or not. The improvement is further slightly enhanced when only observations collected close to the analysis time are assimilated, while the shortening of cycle length worsens QPF accuracy. Finally, the employment of too small a value of roe introduces imbalances into the analyses, resulting in a severe degradation of forecast accuracy, especially when very short assimilation cycles are used.