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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Information Content Of Seasonal Forecasts In A Changing Climate, Nir Krakauer, Michael D. Grossberg, Irina Gladkova, Hannah Aizenman
Information Content Of Seasonal Forecasts In A Changing Climate, Nir Krakauer, Michael D. Grossberg, Irina Gladkova, Hannah Aizenman
Publications and Research
We study the potential value to stakeholders of probabilistic long-term forecasts, as quantified by the mean information gain of the forecast compared to climatology. We use as a case study the USA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) forecasts of 3-month temperature and precipitation anomalies made at 0.5-month lead time since 1995. Mean information gain was positive but low (about 2% and 0.5% of the maximum possible for temperature and precipitation forecasts, resp.) and has not increased over time. Information-based skill scores showed similar patterns to other, non-information-based, skill scores commonly used for evaluating seasonal forecasts but tended to be smaller, suggesting …
Estimating Climate Trends: Application To United States Plant Hardiness Zones, Nir Krakauer
Estimating Climate Trends: Application To United States Plant Hardiness Zones, Nir Krakauer
Publications and Research
The United States Department of Agriculture classifies plant hardiness zones based on mean annual minimum temperatures over some past period (currently 1976–2005). Since temperatures are changing, these values may benefit from updating. I outline a multistep methodology involving imputation of missing station values, geostatistical interpolation, and time series smoothing to update a climate variable’s expected value compared to a climatology period and apply it to estimating annual minimum temperature change over the coterminous United States. I show using hindcast experiments that trend estimation gives more accurate predictions of minimum temperatures 1-2 years in advance compared to the previous 30 years’ …