Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps

This paper presents a novel statistical downscaling method based on a non-linear classification technique known as self-organizing maps (SOMs) and has therefore been named SOM-SD. The relationship between large-scale atmospheric circulation and local-scale surface variable wasconstructed in a relati...

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Main Authors: Yin, C., Li, Y., Ye, W., Bornman, Janet, Yan, X.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Springer Wien 2011
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/15340
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author Yin, C.
Li, Y.
Ye, W.
Bornman, Janet
Yan, X.
author_facet Yin, C.
Li, Y.
Ye, W.
Bornman, Janet
Yan, X.
author_sort Yin, C.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper presents a novel statistical downscaling method based on a non-linear classification technique known as self-organizing maps (SOMs) and has therefore been named SOM-SD. The relationship between large-scale atmospheric circulation and local-scale surface variable wasconstructed in a relatively simple and transparent manner. For a specific atmospheric state, an ensemble of possible values was generated for the predictand following the Monte Carlo method. Such a stochastic simulation is essential to explore the uncertainties of climate change in the future through a series of random re-sampling experiments. The novel downscaling method was evaluated bydownscaling daily precipitation over Southeast Australia. The large-scale predictors were extracted from the daily NCAR/NCEP reanalysis data, while the predictand was high resolution gridded daily observed precipitation (1958–2008) from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The results showed that the method works reasonably well across a variety of climatic zones in the study area. Overall, there wasno particular zone that stands out as a climatic entity where the downscaling skill in reproducing all statistical indices was consistently lower or higher across seasons than the other zones. The method displayed a high skill in reproducing not only the climatologic statistical properties of the observedprecipitation, but also the characteristics of the extreme precipitation events. Furthermore, the model was able to reproduce, to a certain extent, the inter-annual variability of precipitation characteristics.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2011
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-153402017-02-28T01:27:07Z Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps Yin, C. Li, Y. Ye, W. Bornman, Janet Yan, X. This paper presents a novel statistical downscaling method based on a non-linear classification technique known as self-organizing maps (SOMs) and has therefore been named SOM-SD. The relationship between large-scale atmospheric circulation and local-scale surface variable wasconstructed in a relatively simple and transparent manner. For a specific atmospheric state, an ensemble of possible values was generated for the predictand following the Monte Carlo method. Such a stochastic simulation is essential to explore the uncertainties of climate change in the future through a series of random re-sampling experiments. The novel downscaling method was evaluated bydownscaling daily precipitation over Southeast Australia. The large-scale predictors were extracted from the daily NCAR/NCEP reanalysis data, while the predictand was high resolution gridded daily observed precipitation (1958–2008) from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The results showed that the method works reasonably well across a variety of climatic zones in the study area. Overall, there wasno particular zone that stands out as a climatic entity where the downscaling skill in reproducing all statistical indices was consistently lower or higher across seasons than the other zones. The method displayed a high skill in reproducing not only the climatologic statistical properties of the observedprecipitation, but also the characteristics of the extreme precipitation events. Furthermore, the model was able to reproduce, to a certain extent, the inter-annual variability of precipitation characteristics. 2011 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/15340 Springer Wien restricted
spellingShingle Yin, C.
Li, Y.
Ye, W.
Bornman, Janet
Yan, X.
Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title_full Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title_fullStr Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title_full_unstemmed Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title_short Statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast Australia based on self-organising maps
title_sort statistical downscaling of regional precipitation and temperature over southeast australia based on self-organising maps
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/15340