Statistical Downscaling for Multi-Model Ensemble Prediction of Summer Monsoon Rainfall in the Asia-Pacific Region Using Geopotential Height Field

The 21-yr ensemble predictions of model precipitation and circulation in the East Asian and western North Pacific （Asia-Pacific） summer monsoon region （0°-50°N, 100° 150°E） were evaluated in nine different AGCM, used in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Climate Center （APCC） multi-model ensemble seasonal prediction system. The analysis indicates that the precipitation anomaly patterns of model ensemble predictions are substantially different from the observed counterparts in this region, but the summer monsoon circulations are reasonably predicted. For example, all models can well produce the interannual variability of the western North Pacific monsoon index （WNPMI） defined by 850 hPa winds, but they failed to predict the relationship between WNPMI and precipitation anomalies. The interannual variability of the 500 hPa geopotential height （GPH） can be well predicted by the models in contrast to precipitation anomalies. On the basis of such model performances and the relationship between the interannual variations of 500 hPa GPH and precipitation anomalies, we developed a statistical scheme used to downscale the summer monsoon precipitation anomaly on the basis of EOF and singular value decomposition （SVD）. In this scheme, the three leading EOF modes of 500 hPa GPH anomaly fields predicted by the models are firstly corrected by the linear regression between the principal components in each model and observation, respectively. Then, the corrected model GPH is chosen as the predictor to downscale the precipitation anomaly field, which is assembled by the forecasted expansion coefficients of model 500 hPa GPH and the three leading SVD modes of observed precipitation anomaly corresponding to the prediction of model 500 hPa GPH during a 19-year training period. The cross-validated forecasts suggest that this downscaling scheme may have a potential to improve the forecast skill of the precipitation anomaly in the South China Sea, western North Pacific and the East Asia Pacific regions, where the anomaly correlation coefficient （ACC） has been improved by 0.14, corresponding to the reduced RMSE of 10.4% in the conventional multi-model ensemble （MME） forecast.

Using Statistical Downscaling to Quantify the GCM-Related Uncertainty in Regional Climate Change Scenarios: A Case Study of Swedish Precipitation

There are a number of sources of uncertainty in regional climate change scenarios. When statistical downscaling is used to obtain regional climate change scenarios, the uncertainty may originate from the uncertainties in the global climate models used, the skill of the statistical model, and the forcing scenarios applied to the global climate model. The uncertainty associated with global climate models can be evaluated by examining the differences in the predictors and in the downscaled climate change scenarios based on a set of different global climate models. When standardized global climate model simulations such as the second phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project （CMIP2） are used, the difference in the downscaled variables mainly reflects differences in the climate models and the natural variability in the simulated climates. It is proposed that the spread of the estimates can be taken as a measure of the uncertainty associated with global climate models. The proposed method is applied to the estimation of global-climate-model-related uncertainty in regional precipitation change scenarios in Sweden. Results from statistical downscaling based on 17 global climate models show that there is an overall increase in annual precipitation all over Sweden although a considerable spread of the changes in the precipitation exists. The general increase can be attributed to the increased large-scale precipitation and the enhanced westerly wind. The estimated uncertainty is nearly independent of region. However, there is a seasonal dependence. The estimates for winter show the highest level of confidence, while the estimates for summer show the least.

Statistical Downscaling of Summer Temperature Extremes in Northern China

Two approaches of statistical downscaling were applied to indices of temperature extremes based on percentiles of daily maximum and minimum temperature observations at Beijing station in summer during 1960-2008. One was to downscale daily maximum and minimum temperatures by using EOF analysis and stepwise linear regression at first, then to calculate the indices of extremes; the other was to directly downseale the percentile-based indices by using seasonal large-scale temperature and geo-potential height records. The cross-validation results showed that the latter approach has a better performance than the former. Then, the latter approach was applied to 48 meteorological stations in northern China. The cross- validation results for all 48 stations showed close correlation between the percentile-based indices and the seasonal large-scale variables. Finally, future scenarios of indices of temperature extremes in northern China were projected by applying the statistical downsealing to Hadley Centre Coupled Model Version 3 （HadCM3） simulations under the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 （RCP 4.5） scenario of the Fifth Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project （CMIP5）. The results showed that the 90th percentile of daily maximum temperatures will increase by about 1.5℃, and the 10th of daily minimum temperatures will increase by about 2℃ during the period 2011- 35 relative to 1980-99.

An Experiment of a Statistical Downscaling Forecast Model for Summer Precipitation over China

A combination of the optimal subset regression (OSR) approach,the coupled general circulation model of the National Climate Center (NCC-CGCM) and precipitation observations from 160 stations over China is used to construct a statistical downscaling forecast model for precipitation in summer.Retroactive forecasts are performed to assess the skill of statistical downscaling during the period from 2003 to 2009.The results show a poor simulation for summer precipitation by the NCCCGCM for China,and the average spatial anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) is 0.01 in the forecast period.The forecast skill can be improved by OSR statistical downscaling,and the OSR forecast performs better than the NCC-CGCM in most years except 2003.The spatial ACC is more than 0.2 in the years 2008 and 2009,which proves to be relatively skillful.Moreover,the statistical downscaling forecast performs relatively well for the main rain belt of the summer precipitation in some years,including 2005,2006,2008,and 2009.However,the forecast skill of statistical downscaling is restricted to some extent by the relatively low skill of the NCCCGCM.

Statistical Downscaling Prediction of Summer Precipitation in Southeastern China

A statistical downscaling approach based on multiple-linear-regression(MLR) for the prediction of summer precipitation anomaly in southeastern China was established,which was based on the outputs of seven operational dynamical models of Development of a European Multi-model Ensemble System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction(DEMETER) and observed data.It was found that the anomaly correlation coefficients(ACCs) spatial pattern of June-July-August(JJA) precipitation over southeastern China between the seven models and the observation were increased significantly;especially in the central and the northeastern areas,the ACCs were all larger than 0.42(above 95% level) and 0.53(above 99% level).Meanwhile,the root-mean-square errors(RMSE) were reduced in each model along with the multi-model ensemble(MME) for some of the stations in the northeastern area;additionally,the value of RMSE difference between before and after downscaling at some stations were larger than 1 mm d-1.Regionally averaged JJA rainfall anomaly temporal series of the downscaling scheme can capture the main characteristics of observation,while the correlation coefficients(CCs) between the temporal variations of the observation and downscaling results varied from 0.52 to 0.69 with corresponding variations from-0.27 to 0.22 for CCs between the observation and outputs of the models.

A New Statistical Downscaling Scheme for Predicting Winter Precipitation in China

An effective statistical downscaling scheme was developed on the basis of singular value decomposition to predict boreal winter(December-January-February)precipitation over China.The variable geopotential height at 500 hPa(GH5)over East Asia,which was obtained from National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s Coupled Forecast System(NCEP CFS),was used as one predictor for the scheme.The preceding sea ice concentration(SIC)signal obtained from observed data over high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere was chosen as an additional predictor.This downscaling scheme showed significantly improvement in predictability over the original CFS general circulation model(GCM)output in cross validation.The multi-year average spatial anomaly correlation coefficient increased from–0.03 to 0.31,and the downscaling temporal root-mean-square-error(RMSE)decreased significantly over that of the original CFS GCM for most China stations.Furthermore,large precipitation anomaly centers were reproduced with greater accuracy in the downscaling scheme than those in the original CFS GCM,and the anomaly correlation coefficient between the observation and downscaling results reached～0.6 in the winter of 2008.

Seasonal Prediction of June Rainfall over South China:Model Assessment and Statistical Downscaling

The performances of various dynamical models from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation（APEC） Climate Center（APCC） multi-model ensemble（MME） in predicting station-scale rainfall in South China（SC） in June were evaluated.It was found that the MME mean of model hindcasts can skillfully predict the June rainfall anomaly averaged over the SC domain.This could be related to the MME＇s ability in capturing the observed linkages between SC rainfall and atmospheric large-scale circulation anomalies in the Indo-Pacific region.Further assessment of station-scale June rainfall prediction based on direct model output（DMO） over 97 stations in SC revealed that the MME mean outperforms each individual model.However,poor prediction abilities in some in-land and southeastern SC stations are apparent in the MME mean and in a number of models.In order to improve the performance at those stations with poor DMO prediction skill,a station-based statistical downscaling scheme was constructed and applied to the individual and MME mean hindcast runs.For several models,this scheme can outperform DMO at more than 30 stations,because it can tap into the abilities of the models in capturing the anomalous Indo-Paciric circulation to which SC rainfall is considerably sensitive.Therefore,enhanced rainfall prediction abilities in these models should make them more useful for disaster preparedness and mitigation purposes.

Predictor Selection for CNN-based Statistical Downscaling of Monthly Precipitation

Convolutional neural networks(CNNs) have been widely studied and found to obtain favorable results in statistical downscaling to derive high-resolution climate variables from large-scale coarse general circulation models(GCMs).However, there is a lack of research exploring the predictor selection for CNN modeling. This paper presents an effective and efficient greedy elimination algorithm to address this problem. The algorithm has three main steps: predictor importance attribution, predictor removal, and CNN retraining, which are performed sequentially and iteratively. The importance of individual predictors is measured by a gradient-based importance metric computed by a CNN backpropagation technique, which was initially proposed for CNN interpretation. The algorithm is tested on the CNN-based statistical downscaling of monthly precipitation with 20 candidate predictors and compared with a correlation analysisbased approach. Linear models are implemented as benchmarks. The experiments illustrate that the predictor selection solution can reduce the number of input predictors by more than half, improve the accuracy of both linear and CNN models,and outperform the correlation analysis method. Although the RMSE(root-mean-square error) is reduced by only 0.8%,only 9 out of 20 predictors are used to build the CNN, and the FLOPs(Floating Point Operations) decrease by 20.4%. The results imply that the algorithm can find subset predictors that correlate more to the monthly precipitation of the target area and seasons in a nonlinear way. It is worth mentioning that the algorithm is compatible with other CNN models with stacked variables as input and has the potential for nonlinear correlation predictor selection.

Temporal Statistical Downscaling of Precipitation and Temperature Forecasts Using a Stochastic Weather Generator

Statistical downscaling is based on the fact that the large-scale climatic state and regional/local physiographic features control the regional climate. In the present paper, a stochastic weather generator is applied to seasonal precipitation and temperature forecasts produced by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society （IRI）. In conjunction with the GLM （generalized linear modeling） weather generator, a resampling scheme is used to translate the uncertainty in the seasonal forecasts （the IRI format only specifies probabilities for three categories： below normal, near normal, and above normal） into the corresponding uncertainty for the daily weather statistics. The method is able to generate potentially useful shifts in the probability distributions of seasonally aggregated precipitation and minimum and maximum temperature, as well as more meaningful daily weather statistics for crop yields, such as the number of dry days and the amount of precipitation on wet days. The approach is extended to the case of climate change scenarios, treating a hypothetical return to a previously observed drier regime in the Pampas.

A Hybrid Statistical-Dynamical Downscaling of Air Temperature over Scandinavia Using the WRF Model

An accurate simulation of air temperature at local scales is crucial for the vast majority of weather and climate applications.In this work,a hybrid statistical–dynamical downscaling method and a high-resolution dynamical-only downscaling method are applied to daily mean,minimum and maximum air temperatures to investigate the quality of localscale estimates produced by downscaling.These two downscaling approaches are evaluated using station observation data obtained from the Finnish Meteorological Institute over a near-coastal region of western Finland.The dynamical downscaling is performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF)model,and the statistical downscaling method implemented is the Cumulative Distribution Function-transform(CDF-t).The CDF-t is trained using 20 years of WRF-downscaled Climate Forecast System Reanalysis data over the region at a 3-km spatial resolution for the central month of each season.The performance of the two methods is assessed qualitatively,by inspection of quantile-quantile plots,and quantitatively,through the Cramer-von Mises,mean absolute error,and root-mean-square error diagnostics.The hybrid approach is found to provide significantly more skillful forecasts of the observed daily mean and maximum air temperatures than those of the dynamical-only downscaling(for all seasons).The hybrid method proves to be less computationally expensive,and also to give more skillful temperature forecasts(at least for the Finnish near-coastal region).

Statistical Downscaling of Precipitation and Temperature Using Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator in Zambia: A Case of Mount Makulu Agriculture Research Station

The Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) is a stochastic weather generator used for the simulation of weather data at a single site under both current and future climate conditions using General Circulation Models (GCM). It was calibrated using the baseline (1981-2010) and evaluated to determine its suitability in generating synthetic weather data for 2020 and 2055 according to the projections of HadCM3 and BCCR-BCM2 GCMs under SRB1 and SRA1B scenarios at Mount Makulu (Latitude: 15.550°S, Longitude: 28.250°E, Elevation: 1213 meter), Zambia. Three weather parameters—precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature were simulated using LARS-WG v5.5 for observed station and AgMERRA reanalysis data for Mount Makulu. Monthly means and variances of observed and generated daily precipitation, maximum temperature and minimum temperature were used to evaluate the suitability of LARS-WG. Other climatic conditions such as wet and dry spells, seasonal frost and heat spells distributions were also used to assess the performance of the model. The results showed that these variables were modeled with good accuracy and LARS-WG could be used with high confidence to reproduce the current and future climate scenarios. Mount Makulu did not experience any seasonal frost. The average temperatures for the baseline (Observed station data: 1981-2010 and AgMERRA reanalysis: 1981-2010) were 21.33°C and 22.21°C, respectively. Using the observed station data, the average temperature under SRB1 (2020), SRA1B (2020), SRB1 (2055), SRA1B (2055) would be 21.90°C, 21.94°C, 22.83°C and 23.18°C, respectively. Under the AgMERRA reanalysis, the average temperatures would be 22.75°C (SRB1: 2020), 22.80°C (SRA1B: 2020), 23.69°C (SRB1: 2055) and 24.05°C (SRA1B: 2055). The HadCM3 and BCM2 GCMs ensemble mean showed that the number of days with precipitation would increase while the mean precipitation amount in 2020s and 2050s under SRA1B would reduce by 6.19% to 6.65%. Precipitation would increase under SRB1 (Observed), SRA1B, and SRB1 (AgMERRA) from 0.31% to 5.2% in 2020s and 2055s, respectively.

Application of Principal Component Regression with Dummy Variable in Statistical Downscaling to Forecast Rainfall

Statistical downscaling (SD) analyzes relationship between local-scale response and global-scale predictors. The SD model can be used to forecast rainfall (local-scale) using global-scale precipitation from global circulation model output (GCM). The objectives of this research were to determine the time lag of GCM data and build SD model using PCR method with time lag of the GCM precipitation data. The observations of rainfall data in Indramayu were taken from 1979 to 2007 showing similar patterns with GCM data on 1st grid to 64th grid after time shift (time lag). The time lag was determined using the cross-correlation function. However, GCM data of 64 grids showed multicollinearity problem. This problem was solved by principal component regression (PCR), but the PCR model resulted heterogeneous errors. PCR model was modified to overcome the errors with adding dummy variables to the model. Dummy variables were determined based on partial least squares regression (PLSR). The PCR model with dummy variables improved the rainfall prediction. The SD model with lag-GCM predictors was also better than SD model without lag-GCM.

Statistical Downscaling Retrieval of Land Surface Temperature in an Area with Complex Landforms in the Eastern Qinling Mountains of China Based on Sentinel-2/3 Satellite Data

The study of land surface temperature(LST)is of great significance for ecosystem monitoring and ecological environmental protection in the Qinling Mountains of China.In view of the contradicting spatial and temporal resolutions in extracting LST from satellite remote sensing(RS)data,the areas with complex landforms of the Eastern Qinling Mountains were selected as the research targets to establish the correlation between the normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI)and LST.Detailed information on the surface features and temporal changes in the land surface was provided by Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3,respectively.Based on the statistically downscaling method,the spatial scale could be decreased from 1000 m to 10 m,and LST with a Sentinel-3 temporal resolution and a 10 m spatial resolution could be retrieved.Comparing the 1 km resolution Sentinel-3 LST with the downscaling results,the 10 m LST downscaling data could accurately reflect the spatial distribution of the thermal characteristics of the original LST image.Moreover,the surface temperature data with a 10 m high spatial resolution had clear texture and obvious geomorphic features that could depict the detailed information of the ground features.The results showed that the average error was 5 K on April 16,2019 and 2.6 K on July 15,2019.The smaller error values indicated the higher vegetation coverage of summer downscaling result with the highest level on July 15.

Statistically Downscaled Summer Rainfall over the Middle-Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River

The summer rainfall over the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River valley (YRSR) has been estimated with a multi-linear regression model using principal atmospheric modes derived from a 500 hPa geopotential height and a 700 hPa zonal vapor flux over the domain of East Asia and the West Pacific.The model was developed using data from 1958 92 and validated with an independent prediction from 1993 2008.The independent prediction was efficient in predicting the YRSR with a correlation coefficient of 0.72 and a relative root mean square error of 18%.The downscaling model was applied to two general circulation models (GCMs) of Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System Model (FGOALS) and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory coupled climate model version 2.1 (GFDL-CM2.1) to project rainfall for present and future climate under B1 and A1B emission scenarios.The downscaled results pro-vided a closer representation of the observation compared to the raw models in the present climate.In addition,compared to the inconsistent prediction directly from dif-ferent GCMs,the downscaled results provided a consistent projection for this half-century,which indicated a clear increase in the YRSR.Under the B1 emission scenario,the rainfall could increase by an average of 11.9% until 2011 25 and 17.2% until 2036 50 from the current state;under the A1B emission scenario,rainfall could increase by an average of 15.5% until 2011 25 and 25.3% until 2036 50 from the current state.Moreover,the increased rate was faster in the following decade (2011 25) than the latter of this half-century (2036 50) under both emissions.

Statistically Downscaled Temperature Scenarios over China

Monthly mean temperatures at 562 stations in China are estimated using a statistical downscaling technique. The technique used is multiple linear regressions （MLRs） of principal components （PCs）. A stepwise screening procedure is used for selecting the skilful PCs as predictors used in the regression equation. The predictors include temperature at 850 hPa （7）, the combination of sea-level pressure and temperature at 850 hPa （P＋T） and the combination of geo-potential height and temperature at 850 hPa （H＋T）. The downscaling procedure is tested with the three predictors over three predictor domains. The optimum statistical model is obtained for each station and month by finding the predictor and predictor domain corresponding to the highest correlation. Finally, the optimum statistical downscaling models are applied to the Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 （HadCM3） outputs under the Special Report on Emission Scenarios （SRES） A2 and B2 scenarios to construct local future temperature change scenarios for each station and month, The results show that （1） statistical downscaling produces less warming than the HadCM3 output itself; （2） the downscaled annual cycles of temperature differ from the HadCM3 output, but are similar to the observation; （3） the downscaled temperature scenarios show more warming in the north than in the south; （4） the downscaled temperature scenarios vary with emission scenarios, and the A2 scenario produces more warming than the B2, especially in the north of China.

Forecasting the Future Temperature Using a Downscaling Method by LARS-WG Stochastic Weather Generator at the Local Site of Phitsanulok Province, Thailand

The study evaluates the effect of climate change on temperature, which is one of the most important variables in water resources management and irrigation scheduling. Climate prediction is necessary in the agricultural and hydrological analysis. This study proposed an approach to the application of the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) in Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) under EC-Earth and MPI-ESM-MR. The first step is model calibration, where the observed dataset is analyzed statistically. In the second stage, the synthetic data and observed data are checked for Kolmogorov-Smirnov and the means and standard deviations. In order to evaluate the response of temperature under future warmer climate trends, the approach was assessed using data series. These parameters consisted of the minimum and maximum temperature at the Phitsanulok Meteorological Station (WMO Index 48378) and RCP4.5 climate change scenario for the base period as well as for 2021-2040 (the near future), 2041-2060 (the medium future) and 2061-2080 (the far future). The results of the numerical applications indicated that the linkage between the observed data spatially downscaled from LARS-WG simulations with the historical one of the locations during the baseline period had a very good accuracy. It was also found that the future climate change of temperature contributed to higher change. The mean of minimum temperature in the baseline year was 23.13°C while the mean of minimum temperature in the projection period for 2021-2040, 2041-2060 and 2061-2080 is expected to be 24.09 (+4.18%), 24.49 (+5.94%) and 24.82 (+7.36%)°C, and 24.12 (+4.32%), 24.82 (+7.36%) and 25.08 (+8.48%)°C for the EC-Earth and MPI-ESM-MR, respectively. While, the mean of maximum temperature in the baseline year was 33.41°C, the maximum temperatures are projected to increase at 34.47 (+3.19%), 34.88 (+4.43%) and 35.21 (+5.40%)°C, and 34.53 (+3.36%), 35.19 (+5.34%) and 35.30 (+5.67%)°C, respectively. Furthermore, the future local surface temperatures from the MPI-ESM-MR project tended to be higher than EC-Earth. In conclusion, the study results indicate that in coming three time periods, the minimum and maximum temperature increase is expected in Phitsanulok province, Thailand.

Downscaling法在贵州冬季气温和降水预测中的应用

基于CGCM模式输出500 hPa位势高度场、NCEP/NCAR再分析500 hPa高度资料、贵州冬季降水和气温历史资料,利用降尺度法,对贵州冬季降水和气温预报的技巧和预测效果进行了预测试验和改进。结果表明,该方法从动力与统计相结合的角度,给出季尺度大气环流与局地降水、气温之间的关系,有明确的动力学背景和天气学意义。20年回算及两年回报试验证明了该关系的合理性;对贵州冬季降水的预测率约70%,而对气温的预测率为65%左右。另外,通过对气温反演方程订正后,其预测率达67%左右;在极端异常年,该方法对降水的预测率变幅不大,而对气温的预测效果影响极大。最后利用该方法对2005年贵州冬季降水和气温趋势进行了展望。

Downscaling GCMs Using the Smooth Support Vector Machine Method to Predict Daily Precipitation in the Hanjiang Basin

General circulation models （GCMs） are often used in assessing the impact of climate change at global and continental scales. However, the climatic factors simulated by GCMs are inconsistent at comparatively smaller scales, such as individual river basins. In this study, a statistical downscaling approach based on the Smooth Support Vector Machine （SSVM） method was constructed to predict daily precipitation of the changed climate in the Hanjiang Basin. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data were used to establish the statistical relationship between the larger scale climate predictors and observed precipitation. The relationship obtained was used to project future precipitation from two GCMs （CGCM2 and HadCM3） for the A2 emission scenario. The results obtained using SSVM were compared with those from an artificial neural network （ANN）. The comparisons showed that SSVM is suitable for conducting climate impact studies as a statistical downscaling tool in this region. The temporal trends projected by SSVM based on the A2 emission scenario for CGCM2 and HadCM3 were for rainfall to decrease during the period 2011–2040 in the upper basin and to increase after 2071 in the whole of Hanjiang Basin.

Precipitation Case Prediction Experiment Based on Improved Downscaling Method

The common downscaling methods refer to statistical downscaling, dynamic downscaling and hybrid downscaling. In the work, an improved downscaling method was proposed based on the hybrid downscaling of dynamics and statistics. After that, a precipitation process was selected to compare the actual precipitation with the precipitation results predicted by the downscaling method. Results showed that the prediction results of this improved method basically met the computational needs of hydrological model.

Characteristics and Comparison of Different Downscaling Methods in Global Climate Model

Global climate change greatly impedes the sustainable development of human society.And severe consequences could arise unless effective measures are taken to prevent them under the condition that we have a clear understanding of the trend of climate change.Currently,the most practical way to predict trend of climate change is GCM.However,GCM is unavailable in predicting detailed regional climate due to the lack of regional information and a relatively low spatial resolution of GCM.Such shortcoming is supplemented by the methods of downscaling which fall into three types:dynamical downscaling,statistical downscaling and the combination of statistical and dynamic downscaling.This paper aims at explaining in detail the methods of downscaling mentioned above and comparing their advantages and disadvantages in the hope of offering a reference for global climate prediction.