Uncertainties in Numerical Weather Prediction

Uncertainties in Numerical Weather Prediction is a comprehensive work on the most current understandings of uncertainties and predictability in numerical simulations of the atmosphere. It provides general knowledge on all aspects of uncertainties in the weather prediction models in a single, easy to use reference. The book illustrates particular uncertainties in observations and data assimilation, as well as the errors associated with numerical integration methods. Stochastic methods in parameterization of subgrid processes are also assessed, as are uncertainties associated with surface-atmosphere exchange, orographic flows and processes in the atmospheric boundary layer. Through a better understanding of the uncertainties to watch for, readers will be able to produce more precise and accurate forecasts. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to improve the accuracy of weather and climate forecasting and interested parties developing tools to enhance the quality of such forecasts. Provides a comprehensive overview of the state of numerical weather prediction at spatial scales, from hundreds of meters, to thousands of kilometers Focuses on short-term 1-15 day atmospheric predictions, with some coverage appropriate for longer-term forecasts Includes references to climate prediction models to allow applications of these techniques for climate simulations

Weather forecasting is one of the most vital tasks in many applications ranging from severe weather hazard systems to energy production. Numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems are commonly used state-of-the-art atmospheric models that provide point forecasts as deterministic predictions arranged on a three-dimensional grid. However, there is always some level of error and uncertainty in the forecasts due to inaccuracies of initial conditions, the chaotic nature of weather, etc. Such uncertainty information is crucial in decision making and optimization processes involved in many applications. A common representation of forecast uncertainty is a Prediction Interval (PI) that determines a minima, maxima and confidence level for each forecast, e.g. [2°C, 15°C]-95%. In this study, we investigate various methods that can model the uncertainty of NWP forecasts and provide PIs for the forecasts accordingly. In particular, we are interested in analyzing the historical performance of the NWP system as a valuable source for uncertainty modeling. Three different classes of methods are developed and applied for this problem. First, various clustering algorithms (including fuzzy c-means) are employed in concert with fitting appropriate probability distributions to obtain statistical models that can dynamically provide PIs depending on the forecast context. Second, a range of quantile regression methods (including kernel quantile regression) are studied that can directly model the PI boundaries as a function of influential features. In the third class, we focus on various time series modeling approaches including heteroscedasticity modeling methods that can provide forecasts of conditional mean and conditional variance of the target for any forecast horizon. iv All presented PI computation methods are empirically evaluated using a developed comprehensive verification framework in a set of experiments involving real-world data sets of NWP forecasts and observations. A key component is proposed in the evaluation process that would lead to a considerably more reliable judgment. Results show that PIs obtained by the ARIMA-GARCH model (for up to 6-hour-ahead forecasts) and Spline Quantile Regression (for longer leads) provide interval forecasts with satisfactory reliability and significantly better skill. This can lead to improvements in forecast value for many systems that rely on the NWP forecasts.

Uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of weather, seasonal climate, and hydrological prediction, and no forecast is complete without a description of its uncertainty. Effective communication of uncertainty helps people better understand the likelihood of a particular event and improves their ability to make decisions based on the forecast. Nonetheless, for decades, users of these forecasts have been conditioned to receive incomplete information about uncertainty. They have become used to single-valued (deterministic) forecasts (e.g., "the high temperature will be 70 degrees Farenheit 9 days from now") and applied their own experience in determining how much confidence to place in the forecast. Most forecast products from the public and private sectors, including those from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service, continue this deterministic legacy. Fortunately, the National Weather Service and others in the prediction community have recognized the need to view uncertainty as a fundamental part of forecasts. By partnering with other segments of the community to understand user needs, generate relevant and rich informational products, and utilize effective communication vehicles, the National Weather Service can take a leading role in the transition to widespread, effective incorporation of uncertainty information into predictions. "Completing the Forecast" makes recommendations to the National Weather Service and the broader prediction community on how to make this transition.

The topic of predictability in weather and climate has advanced significantly in recent years, both in understanding the phenomena that affect weather and climate and in techniques used to model and forecast them. This book, first published in 2006, brings together some of the world's leading experts on predicting weather and climate. It addresses predictability from the theoretical to the practical, on timescales from days to decades. Topics such as the predictability of weather phenomena, coupled ocean-atmosphere systems and anthropogenic climate change are among those included. Ensemble systems for forecasting predictability are discussed extensively. Ed Lorenz, father of chaos theory, makes a contribution to theoretical analysis with a previously unpublished paper. This well-balanced volume will be a valuable resource for many years. High-calibre chapter authors and extensive subject coverage make it valuable to people with an interest in weather and climate forecasting and environmental science, from graduate students to researchers.

Numerical models have become essential tools in environmental science, particularly in weather forecasting and climate prediction. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the techniques used in these fields, with emphasis on the design of the most recent numerical models of the atmosphere. It presents a short history of numerical weather prediction and its evolution, before describing the various model equations and how to solve them numerically. It outlines the main elements of a meteorological forecast suite, and the theory is illustrated throughout with practical examples of operational models and parameterizations of physical processes. This book is founded on the author's many years of experience, as a scientist at Météo-France and teaching university-level courses. It is a practical and accessible textbook for graduate courses and a handy resource for researchers and professionals in atmospheric physics, meteorology and climatology, as well as the related disciplines of fluid dynamics, hydrology and oceanography.

Meteorology at the Millennium details recent advances in meteorology and explores its interfaces with science, technology, and society. Ways in which modern meteorology is contributing to the developments in other sciences are described, as well as how atmospheric scientists are learning from colleagues in related disciplines. Meteorology at the Millennium will serve as a point of reference for students and researchers of meteorology and climatology for many years to come. The areas covered include weather prediction at the millennium, climate variability and change, atmosphere-ocean coupling, the biogeochemical system, weather on other planets. This book is a compilation of the best invited papers presented at a conference celebrating the 150 years of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS).

This proceedings provides novel concepts and techniques for air traffic management (ATM) and communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) systems. The volume consists of selected papers from the 5th ENRI International Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2017) held in Tokyo in November 2017, the theme of which was “Drafting Future Skies”. Included are key topics to realize safer and more efficient skies in the future, linked to the integrated conference theme consisting of long-term visions based on presentations from various fields. The proceedings is dedicated not only to researchers, academicians, and university students, but also to engineers in the industry, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), and regulators of aviation.

The five-volume set LNCS 11536, 11537, 11538, 11539 and 11540 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computational Science, ICCS 2019, held in Faro, Portugal, in June 2019. The total of 65 full papers and 168 workshop papers presented in this book set were carefully reviewed and selected from 573 submissions (228 submissions to the main track and 345 submissions to the workshops). The papers were organized in topical sections named: Part I: ICCS Main Track Part II: ICCS Main Track; Track of Advances in High-Performance Computational Earth Sciences: Applications and Frameworks; Track of Agent-Based Simulations, Adaptive Algorithms and Solvers; Track of Applications of Matrix Methods in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; Track of Architecture, Languages, Compilation and Hardware Support for Emerging and Heterogeneous Systems Part III: Track of Biomedical and Bioinformatics Challenges for Computer Science; Track of Classifier Learning from Difficult Data; Track of Computational Finance and Business Intelligence; Track of Computational Optimization, Modelling and Simulation; Track of Computational Science in IoT and Smart Systems Part IV: Track of Data-Driven Computational Sciences; Track of Machine Learning and Data Assimilation for Dynamical Systems; Track of Marine Computing in the Interconnected World for the Benefit of the Society; Track of Multiscale Modelling and Simulation; Track of Simulations of Flow and Transport: Modeling, Algorithms and Computation Part V: Track of Smart Systems: Computer Vision, Sensor Networks and Machine Learning; Track of Solving Problems with Uncertainties; Track of Teaching Computational Science; Poster Track ICCS 2019 Chapter “Comparing Domain-decomposition Methods for the Parallelization of Distributed Land Surface Models” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book deals with mathematical problems arising in the context of meteorological modelling. It gathers and presents some of the most interesting and important issues from the interaction of mathematics and meteorology. It is unique in that it features contributions on topics like data assimilation, ensemble prediction, numerical methods, and transport modelling, from both mathematical and meteorological perspectives. The derivation and solution of all kinds of numerical prediction models require the application of results from various mathematical fields. The present volume is divided into three parts, moving from mathematical and numerical problems through air quality modelling, to advanced applications in data assimilation and probabilistic forecasting. The book arose from the workshop “Mathematical Problems in Meteorological Modelling” held in Budapest in May 2014 and organized by the ECMI Special Interest Group on Numerical Weather Prediction. Its main objective is to highlight the beauty of the development fields discussed, to demonstrate their mathematical complexity and, more importantly, to encourage mathematicians to contribute to the further success of such practical applications as weather forecasting and climate change projections. Written by leading experts in the field, the book provides an attractive and diverse introduction to areas in which mathematicians and modellers from the meteorological community can cooperate and help each other solve the problems that operational weather centres face, now and in the near future. Readers engaged in meteorological research will become more familiar with the corresponding mathematical background, while mathematicians working in numerical analysis, partial differential equations, or stochastic analysis will be introduced to further application fields of their research area, and will find stimulation and motivation for their future research work.

Though we commonly make them the butt of our jokes, weather forecasters are in fact exceptionally good at managing uncertainty. They consistently do a better job calibrating their performance than stockbrokers, physicians, or other decision-making experts precisely because they receive feedback on their decisions in near real time. Following forecasters in their quest for truth and accuracy, therefore, holds the key to the analytically elusive process of decision making as it actually happens. In Masters of Uncertainty, Phaedra Daipha develops a new conceptual framework for the process of decision making, after spending years immersed in the life of a northeastern office of the National Weather Service. Arguing that predicting the weather will always be more craft than science, Daipha shows how forecasters have made a virtue of the unpredictability of the weather. Impressive data infrastructures and powerful computer models are still only a substitute for the real thing outside, and so forecasters also enlist improvisational collage techniques and an omnivorous appetite for information to create a locally meaningful forecast on their computer screens. Intent on capturing decision making in action, Daipha takes the reader through engrossing firsthand accounts of several forecasting episodes (hits and misses) and offers a rare fly-on-the-wall insight into the process and challenges of producing meteorological predictions come rain or come shine. Combining rich detail with lucid argument, Masters of Uncertainty advances a theory of decision making that foregrounds the pragmatic and situated nature of expert cognition and casts into new light how we make decisions in the digital age.

Uncertainties are pervasive in natural hazards, and it is crucial to develop robust and meaningful approaches to characterize and communicate uncertainties to inform modeling efforts. In this monograph we provide a broad, cross-disciplinary overview of issues relating to uncertainties faced in natural hazard and risk assessment. We introduce some basic tenets of uncertainty analysis, discuss issues related to communication and decision support, and offer numerous examples of analyses and modeling approaches that vary by context and scope. Contributors include scientists from across the full breath of the natural hazard scientific community, from those in real-time analysis of natural hazards to those in the research community from academia and government. Key themes and highlights include: Substantial breadth and depth of analysis in terms of the types of natural hazards addressed, the disciplinary perspectives represented, and the number of studies included Targeted, application-centered analyses with a focus on development and use of modeling techniques to address various sources of uncertainty Emphasis on the impacts of climate change on natural hazard processes and outcomes Recommendations for cross-disciplinary and science transfer across natural hazard sciences This volume will be an excellent resource for those interested in the current work on uncertainty classification/quantification and will document common and emergent research themes to allow all to learn from each other and build a more connected but still diverse and ever growing community of scientists. Read an interview with the editors to find out more: https://eos.org/editors-vox/reducing-uncertainty-in-hazard-prediction

Exploring the interactions that swirl around scientific uncertainty and its coverage by the mass media, this volume breaks new ground by looking at these issues from three different perspectives: that of communication scholars who have studied uncertainty in a number of ways; that of science journalists who have covered these issues; and that of scientists who have been actively involved in researching uncertain science and talking to reporters about it. In particular, Communicating Uncertainty examines how well the mass media convey to the public the complexities, ambiguities, and controversies that are part of scientific uncertainty. In addition to its new approach to scientific uncertainty and mass media interactions, this book distinguishes itself in the quality of work it assembles by some of the best known science communication scholars in the world. This volume continues the exploration of interactions between scientists and journalists that the three coeditors first documented in their highly successful volume, Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News, which was used for many years as a text in science journalism courses around the world.

This book gathers a collection of extended papers based on presentations given during the SimHydro 2017 conference, held in Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France on June 14–16, 2017. It focuses on how to choose the right model in applied hydraulics and considers various aspects, including the modeling and simulation of fast hydraulic transients, 3D modeling, uncertainties and multiphase flows. The book explores both limitations and performance of current models and presents the latest developments in new numerical schemes, high-performance computing, multiphysics and multiscale methods, and better interaction with field or scale model data. It gathers the lastest theoretical and innovative developments in the modeling field and presents some of the most advance applications on various water related topics like uncertainties, flood simulation and complex hydraulic applications. Given its breadth of coverage, it addresses the needs and interests of practitioners, stakeholders, researchers and engineers alike.

This textbook provides a comprehensive yet accessible treatment of weather and climate prediction, for graduate students, researchers and professionals. It teaches the strengths, weaknesses and best practices for the use of atmospheric models. It is ideal for the many scientists who use such models across a wide variety of applications. The book describes the different numerical methods, data assimilation, ensemble methods, predictability, land-surface modeling, climate modeling and downscaling, computational fluid-dynamics models, experimental designs in model-based research, verification methods, operational prediction, and special applications such as air-quality modeling and flood prediction. This volume will satisfy everyone who needs to know about atmospheric modeling for use in research or operations. It is ideal both as a textbook for a course on weather and climate prediction and as a reference text for researchers and professionals from a range of backgrounds: atmospheric science, meteorology, climatology, environmental science, geography, and geophysical fluid mechanics/dynamics.

This Handbook provides up-to-date coverage of both new and well-established fields in the sphere of economic forecasting. The chapters are written by world experts in their respective fields, and provide authoritative yet accessible accounts of the key concepts, subject matter, and techniques in a number of diverse but related areas. It covers the ways in which the availability of ever more plentiful data and computational power have been used in forecasting, in terms of the frequency of observations, the number of variables, and the use of multiple data vintages. Greater data availability has been coupled with developments in statistical theory and economic analysis to allow more elaborate and complicated models to be entertained; the volume provides explanations and critiques of these developments. These include factor models, DSGE models, restricted vector autoregressions, and non-linear models, as well as models for handling data observed at mixed frequencies, high-frequency data, multiple data vintages, methods for forecasting when there are structural breaks, and how breaks might be forecast. Also covered are areas which are less commonly associated with economic forecasting, such as climate change, health economics, long-horizon growth forecasting, and political elections. Econometric forecasting has important contributions to make in these areas along with how their developments inform the mainstream.