The use of zonal statistics in GCM/GCM/data intercomparisons

Conference · Mon Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:5871087

Grotch, S L

As socio/political pressures intensify regarding the potential climatic effects of greenhouse warming, there are ever-increasing pressures to use the General Circulation Model (GCM) results on smaller regional scales (e.g., subcontinental). In bridging the gap from larger scale behavior (global and hemispheric) to the regional scale, zonal statistics are a commonly used tool. In this paper, a variety of statistics are developed using values at all longitudinal gridpoints at a specified latitude and displayed as a function of latitude. The zonal average is the most routinely used of these statistics, but there are many others available, few of which are ever examined in any detail. These can provide a rich array of diagnostic measures for intercomparing models with each other and with observational data. Here, we will examine several of these measures: (1) characteristics of spread'' such as the standard deviation, (2) rms or average absolute pointwise differences, (3) cross correlations, and (4) autocorrelations.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5871087
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC-104681; CONF-910143--5; ON: DE92003976
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
292000 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Supply
Demand & Forecasting
58 GEOSCIENCES
580000 -- Geosciences
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200* -- Mathematics & Computers
CLIMATIC CHANGE
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
DISTRIBUTION
EVALUATION
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATIONS
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
REGIONAL ANALYSIS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
STATISTICAL MODELS
STATISTICS
VARIATIONS