Forecast Performance of the Pre-operational CMA-TRAMS (EPS) in South China During April - September 2020

The mesoscale ensemble prediction system based on the Tropical Regional Atmosphere Model for the South China Sea (CMA-TRAMS (EPS)) has been pre-operational since April 2020 at South China Regional Meteorological Center (SCRMC), which was developed by the Guangzhou Institute of Tropical and Marine Meteorology (GITMM). To better understand the performance of the CMA-TRAMS (EPS) and provide guidance to forecasters, we assess the performance of this system on both deterministic and probabilistic forecasts from April to September 2020 in this study through objective verification. Compared with the control (deterministic) forecasts, the ensemble mean of the CMATRAMS (EPS) shows advantages in most non-precipitation variables. In addition, the threat score indicates that the CMA-TRAMS (EPS) obviously improves light and heavy rainfall forecasts in terms of the probability-matched mean. Compared with the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts operational ensemble prediction system (ECMWF-EPS), the CMA-TRAMS (EPS) improves the probabilistic forecasts of light rainfall in terms of accuracy, reliability and discrimination, and this system also improves the heavy rainfall forecasts in terms of discrimination. Moreover, two typical heavy rainfall cases in south China during the pre-summer rainy season are investigated to visually demonstrate the deterministic and probabilistic forecasts, and the results of these two cases indicate the differences and advantages (deficiencies) of the two ensemble systems.     

基于识别变量的粗差探测Bayes方法

从一个新的角度出发,对应每个观测值引入一个识别变量,基于识别变量的后验概率提出一种新的粗差定位的Bayes方法,并构造相应的均值漂移模型给出粗差估算的Bayes方法.由于识别变量的后验分布往往是复杂的、非标准形式的,为此设计一种MCMC(Markov Chain Monte Carlo)抽样方法以计算识别变量的后验概率值.最后对一边角网进行了计算和分析.试验表明,本文给出的探测粗差的Bayes方法不仅充分利用了先验信息,而且克服了以往粗差定位方法的模糊性以及探测标准选择的问题,同时计算简便.     

Minimum mean squared error (MSE) adjustment and the optimal Tykhonov–Phillips regularization parameter via reproducing best invariant quadratic uniformly unbiased estimates (repro-BIQUUE)

In a linear Gauss–Markov model, the parameter estimates from BLUUE (Best Linear Uniformly Unbiased Estimate) are not robust against possible outliers in the observations. Moreover, by giving up the unbiasedness constraint, the mean squared error (MSE) risk may be further reduced, in particular when the problem is ill-posed. In this paper, the α-weighted S-homBLE (Best homogeneously Linear Estimate) is derived via formulas originally used for variance component estimation on the basis of the repro-BIQUUE (reproducing Best Invariant Quadratic Uniformly Unbiased Estimate) principle in a model with stochastic prior information. In the present model, however, such prior information is not included, which allows the comparison of the stochastic approach (α-weighted S-homBLE) with the well-established algebraic approach of Tykhonov–Phillips regularization, also known as R-HAPS (Hybrid APproximation Solution), whenever the inverse of the “substitute matrix” S exists and is chosen as the R matrix that defines the relative impact of the regularizing term on the final result. The delay in publishing this paper is due to a number of unfortunate complications. It was first submitted as a multi-author paper in two parts. Due to some miscommunication among the original authors, it was reassigned to one of the J Geod special issues, but later reassigned at this author’s request to a standard issue of J Geod. This compounded with a difficulty to find willing reviewers to slow the process. We apologize to the author.     

向量的加权平均值及其方差阵

提出了向量的算术平均值的概念,并推导出了向量的加权平均值和向量的算术平均值的方差阵和权阵的计算公式。另外,还讨论了向量的加权平均值方差阵的计算公式在多类观测值测量数据处理和GPS载波相位相对定位测量中的应用,得到了一系列有实际应用价值的公式。并附有算例相验证。     

Sample Optimization of Ensemble Forecast to Simulate a Tropical Cyclone Using the Observed Track

Ensemble forecasting is widely used in numerical weather prediction. However, the ensemble may not satisfy a perfect Gaussian probability distribution because of a limited number of members, with some members significantly deviating from the true atmospheric state. Such outliers (belonging to low probability events) may downgrade the accuracy of an ensemble forecast. In this study, the observed track of a tropical cyclone (TC) is used to restrict the probability distribution of samples by investigating the evolution of TCs. Unlike data assimilation, the method we employed uses observational data. By restricting the probability distribution, ensemble spread could be decreased through sample optimization. In addition, the prediction results showed that track and intensity errors could be reduced by sample optimization. When the vertical structures of TCs considered in this study were compared, different thermal structures were found. This difference may have been caused by sample optimization, which may affect intensity and track. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the replacement of a large number of inferior samples may inhibit the improvement of simulated results.     

长沙地区寒露风气候特征及初日预测模型

根据1959—2015年长沙地区4个气象站的日平均气温资料、湖南省寒露风等级标准和构建的寒露风初日时间序列,利用数理统计分析、均生函数、最优子集回归等方法,分析了长沙地区寒露风气候特征,建立了寒露风初日预测模型。结果表明:长沙地区1959—2015年发生寒露风共97次,宁乡、望城坡、马坡岭和浏阳分别为38、28、19和12次;发生中度以上寒露风次数自西向东分别为15、10、8和5次。寒露风平均初日在9月19—22日。≤20℃的开始日期最早为9月3日(2013年),最迟为10月28日(2014年),极差为56天。9月上、中及下旬发生寒露风的概率分别为6%、32%和62%,下旬发生概率显著增加。西部宁乡约2 a一遇,东部浏阳约5 a一遇,西部宁乡频率及影响程度远高于东部浏阳的。预测模型拟合率均在89%以上,2011—2016年预测结果较好。     

A hybrid ensemble learning method for tourist route recommendations based on geo-tagged social networks

Geo-tagged travel photos on social networks often contain location data such as points of interest (POIs), and also users’ travel preferences. In this paper, we propose a hybrid ensemble learning method, BAyes-Knn, that predicts personalized tourist routes for travelers by mining their geographical preferences from these location-tagged data. Our method trains two types of base classifiers to jointly predict the next travel destination: (1) The K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier quantifies users’ location history, weather condition, temperature and seasonality and uses a feature-weighted distance model to predict a user’s personalized interests in an unvisited location. (2) A Bayes classifier introduces a smooth kernel function to estimate a-priori probabilities of features and then combines these probabilities to predict a user’s latent interests in a location. All the outcomes from these subclassifiers are merged into one final prediction result by using the Borda count voting method. We evaluated our method on geo-tagged Flickr photos and Beijing weather data collected from 1 January 2005 to 1 July 2016. The results demonstrated that our ensemble approach outperformed 12 other baseline models. In addition, the results showed that our framework has better prediction accuracy than do context-aware significant travel-sequence-patterns recommendations and frequent travel-sequence patterns.     

The effects of land surface process perturbations in a global ensemble forecast system

Atmospheric variability is driven not only by internal dynamics, but also by external forcing, such as soil states, SST, snow, sea-ice cover, and so on. To investigate the forecast uncertainties and effects of land surface processes on numerical weather prediction, we added modules to perturb soil moisture and soil temperature into NCEP’s Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS), and compared the results of a set of experiments involving different configurations of land surface and atmospheric perturbation. It was found that uncertainties in different soil layers varied due to the multiple timescales of interactions between land surface and atmospheric processes. Perturbations of the soil moisture and soil temperature at the land surface changed sensible and latent heat flux obviously, as compared to the less or indirect land surface perturbation experiment from the day-to-day forecasts. Soil state perturbations led to greater variation in surface heat fluxes that transferred to the upper troposphere, thus reflecting interactions and the response to atmospheric external forcing. Various verification scores were calculated in this study. The results indicated that taking the uncertainties of land surface processes into account in GEFS could contribute a slight improvement in forecast skill in terms of resolution and reliability, a noticeable reduction in forecast error, as well as an increase in ensemble spread in an under-dispersive system. This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the effects of land surface processes on predictability. Further research using more complex and suitable methods is needed to fully explore our understanding in this area.     

Ensemble transform sensitivity method for adaptive observations

The Ensemble Transform(ET) method has been shown to be useful in providing guidance for adaptive observation deployment.It predicts forecast error variance reduction for each possible deployment using its corresponding transformation matrix in an ensemble subspace.In this paper,a new ET-based sensitivity(ETS) method,which calculates the gradient of forecast error variance reduction in terms of analysis error variance reduction,is proposed to specify regions for possible adaptive observations.ETS is a first order approximation of the ET;it requires just one calculation of a transformation matrix,increasing computational efficiency(60%-80%reduction in computational cost).An explicit mathematical formulation of the ETS gradient is derived and described.Both the ET and ETS methods are applied to the Hurricane Irene(2011) case and a heavy rainfall case for comparison.The numerical results imply that the sensitive areas estimated by the ETS and ET are similar.However,ETS is much more efficient,particularly when the resolution is higher and the number of ensemble members is larger.     

Comparison of nonlinear local Lyapunov vectors with bred vectors,random perturbations and ensemble transform Kalman filter strategies in a barotropic model

The breeding method has been widely used to generate ensemble perturbations in ensemble forecasting due to its simple concept and low computational cost. This method produces the fastest growing perturbation modes to catch the growing components in analysis errors. However, the bred vectors(BVs) are evolved on the same dynamical flow, which may increase the dependence of perturbations. In contrast, the nonlinear local Lyapunov vector(NLLV) scheme generates flow-dependent perturbations as in the breeding method, but regularly conducts the Gram–Schmidt reorthonormalization processes on the perturbations. The resulting NLLVs span the fast-growing perturbation subspace efficiently, and thus may grasp more components in analysis errors than the BVs.In this paper, the NLLVs are employed to generate initial ensemble perturbations in a barotropic quasi-geostrophic model.The performances of the ensemble forecasts of the NLLV method are systematically compared to those of the random perturbation(RP) technique, and the BV method, as well as its improved version—the ensemble transform Kalman filter(ETKF)method. The results demonstrate that the RP technique has the worst performance in ensemble forecasts, which indicates the importance of a flow-dependent initialization scheme. The ensemble perturbation subspaces of the NLLV and ETKF methods are preliminarily shown to catch similar components of analysis errors, which exceed that of the BVs. However, the NLLV scheme demonstrates slightly higher ensemble forecast skill than the ETKF scheme. In addition, the NLLV scheme involves a significantly simpler algorithm and less computation time than the ETKF method, and both demonstrate better ensemble forecast skill than the BV scheme.