热带气旋集合预报中的不确定性研究

综合考虑了数值天气预报过程中的两种不确定性：初值和模式的不确定性,建立了一个拥有20个成员的中尺度集合预报系统来模拟1997年热带气旋Danny的路径和对流系统.发现模拟气旋路径的集合平均误差在12 h以后比所有成员的误差都小.通过考察模拟结果对各种不确定性的敏感性,发现两种不确定性在模拟中都很重要,但不同的不确定性对模拟结果的贡献是不同的.初值的不确定性主要影响模式积分的前12 h,模式的不确定性在整个积分过程中始终存在.不确定性最敏感的区域主要分布在气旋附近的强天气区.     

神威集合预报可视化实时监控系统在神威机上的设计与实现

根据神威集合数值天气预报的运行特点, 针对其运行过程中可能遇到的问题, 介绍了自主研制的可视化实时监控系统的解决方案。     

并行技术在神威集合数值天气预报系统中的应用

文章讨论了基于神威巨型机的并行化集合数值天气预报系统中实现的各种并行算法, 性能分析结果表明并行方案最大限度的利用了神威机的处理器资源, 设计的并行算法效率较高, 满足了实时业务运行的时效要求。     

MODES系统对贵州月气温、降水预测初步评估

通过对2013年1月—2015年6月(MODES)发布的最优月预测产品在贵州省月平均气温距平和降水距平百分率的预测检验评估,发现MODES对全省平均气温有较好的预报,分析时段内预测与实况的相关系数为0.24,距平同号率为65.5%,且对气温偏高预测的可参考性高于其对气温偏低的预测。相比于气温,MODES对降水预测能力较弱,参考性也相对较低,其中对贵州全省平均降水偏多趋势的预测技巧要优于对全省平均偏少趋势的预报技巧。逐站分析显示,MODES对贵州气温预测效果较好的地区在西部、北部和东部,对降水偏多的预测效果较好的地区位于除西北部和北部边缘地区外的其余大部地区。通过对MODES与预报员综合预报的结果评估发现,MODES月预测总体效果较预报员好,且稳定性高于预报员,可为预报员提供参考信息。     

A time series for monitoring vegetation activity and phenology at 10-daily time steps covering large parts of South America

Abstract

It is widely accepted that natural resources should only be sustainably exploited and utilized to effectively preserve our planet for future generations. To better manage the natural resources, and to better understand the closely linked Earth systems, the concept of Digital Earth has been strongly promoted since US Vice President Al Gore's speech in 1998. One core element of Digital Earth is the use and integration of remote sensing data. Only satellite imagery can cover the entire globe repeatedly at a sufficient high-spatial resolution to map changes in land cover and land use, but also to detect more subtle changes related for instance to climate change. To uncover global change effects on vegetation activity and phenology, it is important to establish high quality time series characterizing the past situation against which the current state can be compared. With the present study we describe a time series of vegetation activity at 10-daily time steps between 1998 and 2008 covering large parts of South America at 1 km spatial resolution. Particular emphasis was put on noise removal. Only carefully filtered time series of vegetation indices can be used as a benchmark and for studying vegetation dynamics at a continental scale. Without temporal smoothing, subtle spatio-temporal patterns in vegetation composition, density and phenology would be hidden by atmospheric noise and undetected clouds. Such noise is immanent in data that have undergone solely a maximum value compositing. Within the present study, the Whittaker smoother (WS) was applied to a SPOT VGT time series. The WS balances the fidelity to the observations with the roughness of the smoothed curve. The algorithm is extremely fast, gives continuous control over smoothness with only one parameter, and interpolates automatically. The filtering efficiently removed the negatively biased noise present in the original data, while preserving the overall shape of the curves showing vegetation growth and development. Geostatistical variogram analysis revealed a significantly increased signal-to-noise ratio compared to the raw data. Analysis of the data also revealed spatially consistent key phenological markers. Extracted seasonality parameters followed a clear meridional trend. Compared to the unfiltered data, the filtered time series increased the separability of various land cover classes. It is thus expected that the data set holds great potential for environmental and vegetation related studies within the frame of Digital Earth.     

基于KPCA的台风强度神经网络集合预报方法研究

针对影响台风强度前期预报因子较多以及因子的非线性变化特点,首先采用逐步回归方法筛选出部分预报因子,再利用核主成分分析方法在剩余的预报因子中提取包含了原数据较多信息的核主成分与前期选入的预报因子共同作为模型输入.进一步考虑到神经网络集合预报中个体的准确性和差异性的权衡问题,在不同的初始条件下生成若干组神经网络,分别选择每组中性能最优的个体,建立了一种新的非线性神经网络集合预报模型.最后以西北太平洋海域2001-2010年5-10月的台风强度为研究对象进行了预报试验.结果表明,这种神经网络集合预报模型的预报结果符合实际应用的要求,其预报平均绝对误差明显小于同等条件下的神经网络方法和逐步回归预报方法.     

Dual states estimation of a subsurface flow-transport coupled model using ensemble Kalman filtering

Modeling the spread of subsurface contaminants requires coupling a groundwater flow model with a contaminant transport model. Such coupling may provide accurate estimates of future subsurface hydrologic states if essential flow and contaminant data are assimilated in the model. Assuming perfect flow, an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) can be used for direct data assimilation into the transport model. This is, however, a crude assumption as flow models can be subject to many sources of uncertainty. If the flow is not accurately simulated, contaminant predictions will likely be inaccurate even after successive Kalman updates of the contaminant model with the data. The problem is better handled when both flow and contaminant states are concurrently estimated using the traditional joint state augmentation approach. In this paper, we introduce a dual estimation strategy for data assimilation into a one-way coupled system by treating the flow and the contaminant models separately while intertwining a pair of distinct EnKFs, one for each model. The presented strategy only deals with the estimation of state variables but it can also be used for state and parameter estimation problems. This EnKF-based dual state-state estimation procedure presents a number of novel features: (i) it allows for simultaneous estimation of both flow and contaminant states in parallel; (ii) it provides a time consistent sequential updating scheme between the two models (first flow, then transport); (iii) it simplifies the implementation of the filtering system; and (iv) it yields more stable and accurate solutions than does the standard joint approach. We conducted synthetic numerical experiments based on various time stepping and observation strategies to evaluate the dual EnKF approach and compare its performance with the joint state augmentation approach. Experimental results show that on average, the dual strategy could reduce the estimation error of the coupled states by 15% compared with the joint approach. Furthermore, the dual estimation is proven to be very effective computationally, recovering accurate estimates at a reasonable cost.     

Precipitation forecasts for rainfall runoff predictions. A case study in poorly gauged Ribb and Gumara catchments,upper Blue Nile,Ethiopia

Flow forecasting in poorly gauged, flood-prone Ribb and Gumara sub-catchments of the Blue Nile was studied with the aim of testing the performance of Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs). Four types of QPFs namely MM5 forecasts with a spatial resolution of 2 km; the Maximum, Mean and Minimum members (MaxEPS, MeanEPS and MinEPS where EPS stands for Ensemble Prediction System) of the fixed, low resolution (2.5 by 2.5 degrees) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Forecast System (NOAA GFS) ensemble forecasts were used. Both the MM5 and the EPS were not calibrated (bias correction, downscaling (for EPS), etc.). In addition, zero forecasts assuming no rainfall in the coming days, and monthly average forecasts assuming average monthly rainfall in the coming days, were used. These rainfall forecasts were then used to drive the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s–Hydrologic Modeling System, HEC–HMS, hydrologic model for flow predictions. The results show that flow predictions using MaxEPS and MM5 precipitation forecasts over-predicted the peak flow for most of the seven events analyzed, whereas under-predicted peak flow was found using zero- and monthly average rainfall. The comparison of observed and predicted flow hydrographs shows that MM5, MaxEPS and MeanEPS precipitation forecasts were able to capture the rainfall signal that caused peak flows. Flow predictions based on MaxEPS and MeanEPS gave results that were quantitatively close to the observed flow for most events, whereas flow predictions based on MM5 resulted in large overestimations for some events. In follow-up research for this particular case study, calibration of the MM5 model will be performed. The overall analysis shows that freely available atmospheric forecasting products can provide additional information on upcoming rainfall and peak flow events in areas where only base-line forecasts such as no-rainfall or climatology are available.     

Scale dependent effects in resource selection by crop-raiding Japanese macaques in Niigata Prefecture,Japan

A resource selection function is one that yields values proportional to the probability of use of a resource unit. This quantity is influenced by the heterogeneity of landscape structures, which occurs over multiple spatial scales. To provide input into wildlife management strategies, we investigated the scale dependency and functional responses of Japanese macaques using multiple scale analysis. The multiple buffers with radii of 100, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 m were defined as the spatial scale. Crop damage was predicted at the within-home range scale, using the Random Forests algorithm with environmental variables linked to resource selection of Japanese macaques. Sixteen environmental variables were defined, covering aspects of landscape configuration, human disturbance, topography, and adopted countermeasures. Crop damage was most accurately predicted within a buffer zone of 1000 m, although radii exceeding 1000 m were also highly accurate. Although the importance of variables differed among spatial extents, the functional responses for each environmental variable were independent of spatial extent. These results suggest that the limiting factors of crop damage depend on spatial extent, while functional responses in resource selection remain constant across spatial extents. We also compared a multi-scale gradient map with a typical binary map to demonstrate the uncertainty in damage predictions at different spatial scales. Our results may aid wildlife management planning, for which differences in resource selection across different spatial scales are critically important.     

A methodology for estimating Leaf Area Index by assimilating remote sensing data into crop model based on temporal and spatial knowledge

In this paper,a methodology for Leaf Area Index(LAI) estimating was proposed by assimilating remote sensed data into crop model based on temporal and spatial knowledge.Firstly,sensitive parameters of crop model were calibrated by Shuffled Complex Evolution method developed at the University of Arizona(SCE-UA) optimization method based on phenological information,which is called temporal knowledge.The calibrated crop model will be used as the forecast operator.Then,the Taylor′s mean value theorem was applied to extracting spatial information from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) multi-scale data,which was used to calibrate the LAI inversion results by A two-layer Canopy Reflectance Model(ACRM) model.The calibrated LAI result was used as the observation operator.Finally,an Ensemble Kalman Filter(EnKF) was used to assimilate MODIS data into crop model.The results showed that the method could significantly improve the estimation accuracy of LAI and the simulated curves of LAI more conform to the crop growth situation closely comparing with MODIS LAI products.The root mean square error(RMSE) of LAI calculated by assimilation is 0.9185 which is reduced by 58.7% compared with that by simulation(0.3795),and before and after assimilation the mean error is reduced by 92.6% which is from 0.3563 to 0.0265.All these experiments indicated that the methodology proposed in this paper is reasonable and accurate for estimating crop LAI.