Statistical Downscaling of Precipitation in Korea Using Multimodel Output Variables as Predictors
Open Access
- 1 June 2009
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Monthly Weather Review
- Vol. 137 (6), 1928-1938
- https://doi.org/10.1175/2008mwr2706.1
Abstract
A pattern projection downscaling method is applied to predict summer precipitation at 60 stations over Korea. The predictors are multiple variables from the output of six operational dynamical models. The hindcast datasets span a period of 21 yr from 1983 to 2003. A downscaled prediction was made for each model separately within a leave-one-out cross-validation framework. The pattern projection method uses a moving window, which scans globally, in order to seek the most optimal predictor for each station. The final forecast is the average of six model downscaled precipitation forecasts using the best predictors and will be referred to as “DMME.” It is found that DMME significantly improves the prediction skill by correcting the erroneous signs of the rainfall anomalies in coarse-resolution predictions of general circulation models. Although Korea’s precipitation is strongly influenced by local mountainous terrain, DMME performs well at 59 stations with correlation skill significant at the 95% confidence level. The improvement of the prediction skill is attributed to three steps: coupled pattern selection, optimal predictor selection, and the multimodel downscaled precipitation ensemble. This study indicates that the large-scale circulation variables, which are predicted by the current operational dynamical models, if selected, can be used to make skillful predictions of the local precipitation by using appropriate statistical downscaling methods.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Seasonal forecast for local precipitation over northern Taiwan using statistical downscalingJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2008
- Multimodel output statistical downscaling prediction of precipitation in the Philippines and ThailandGeophysical Research Letters, 2007
- Error analysis of dynamical seasonal predictions of summer precipitation over the East Asian‐western Pacific regionGeophysical Research Letters, 2007
- Using statistical downscaling to quantify the GCM-related uncertainty in regional climate change scenarios: A case study of Swedish precipitationAdvances in Atmospheric Sciences, 2006
- Potential Predictability of Summer Mean Precipitation in a Dynamical Seasonal Prediction System with Systematic Error CorrectionJournal of Climate, 2004
- Empirically Downscaled Multimodel Ensemble Temperature and Precipitation Scenarios for NorwayJournal of Climate, 2002
- Intercomparison of the climatological variations of Asian summer monsoon precipitation simulated by 10 GCMsClimate Dynamics, 2002
- A comparison between two empirical downscaling strategiesInternational Journal of Climatology, 2001
- Seasonal predictability in winter over eastern Asia using the JMA global modelQuarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2000
- The Use of Model Output Statistics (MOS) in Objective Weather ForecastingJournal of Applied Meteorology, 1972