Application of Tree-Structured Regression for Regional Precipitation Prediction Using General Circulation Model Output

Authors

Xiangshang Li, Portland State University
David J. Sailor, Portland State UniversityFollow

Sponsor

This research was funded in part by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Institute for Global Environmental Change under DOE cooperative agreement No. DE-FC03-90ER61010.

Published In

Climate Research

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2000

Subjects

Precipitation (Meteorology), Climatic changes, Atmospheric circulation -- Simulation methods

Abstract

This study presents a tree-structured regression (TSR) method to relate daily precipitation with a variety of free-atmosphere variables. Historical data were used to identify distinct weather patterns associated with differing types of precipitation events. Models were developed using 67% of the data for training and the remaining data for model validation. Seasonal models were built for each of 2 US sites: San Francisco, California, and San Antonio, Texas. The average correlation between observed and simulated daily precipitation data series is 0.75 for the training set and 0.68 for the validation set. Relative humidity was found to be the dominant variable in these TSR models. Output from an NCAR CSM (climate system model) transient simulation of climate change were then used to drive the TSR models in the prediction of precipitation characteristics under climate change. A preliminary screening of the GCM output variables for current climate, however, revealed significant problems for the San Antonio site. Specifically, the CSM missed the annual trends in humidity for the grid cell containing this site. CSM output for the San Francisco site was found to be much more reliable. Therefore, we present future precipitation estimates only for the San Francisco site.

Description

This is the publisher's final PDF. Originally published in Climate Research (http://www.int-res.com/journals/cr/cr-home/) and is copyrighted by Inter-Research 2000.

*At the time of publication David Sailor was affiliated with Tulane University.

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/12861

Citation Details

Li, X. and Sailor, D.J., 2000. "Application of Tree-Structured Regression for Regional Precipitation Prediction Using General Circulation Model Output", Climate Research, 16 (1), 17-30.