Abstract
We investigate three sources of uncertainty in the calculation of extreme value statistics for observed and modeled climate data. Inter-model differences in formulation, unforced internal variability and choice of statistical model all contribute to uncertainty. Using fits to the GEV distribution to obtain 20 year return values, we quantify these uncertainties for the annual maximum daily mean surface air temperatures of pre-industrial control runs from 15 climate models in the CMIP3 dataset.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Castillo, E., Hadi, A.S., Balakrishnan, N., Sarabia, J.M.: Extreme Value and Related Models with Applications in Engineering and Science. Wiley, New York (2004)
Coles, S.: An Introduction to Statistical Modeling of Extreme Values. Springer, Berlin (2001)
Easterling, D.R., Wehner, M.F.: Is the climate warming or cooling? Geophys. Rev. Let. 36, L08706 (2009)
Hosking, J.R.M.: The L-moments page. http://www.research.ibm.com/people/h/hosking/lmoments.html (2003)
Hosking, J.R.M., Wallis, J.R.: Regional Frequency Analysis, An Approach Based on L-Moments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1997)
Hosking, J.R.M., Wallis, J.R., Wood, E.F.: Estimation of the generalized extreme-value distribution by the method of probability weighted moments. Technometrics 27, 251–261 (1985)
Karl, T.R., Meehl, G.A., Miller, C.D., Hassol, S.J., Waple, A.M., Murray, W.L. (eds.): Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC (2008)
Kharin, V.V., Zwiers, F.W.: Changes in the extremes in an ensemble of transient climate simulation with a coupled atmosphere–ocean GCM. J. Clim. 13, 3760–3788 (2000)
Kharin, V.V., Zwiers, F.W.: Estimating extremes in transient climate change simulations. J. Clim. 18, 1156–1173 (2005)
Kharin, V.V., Zwiers, F.W., Zhang, X., Hegerl, G.C.: Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the IPCC ensemble of global coupled model simulations. J. Clim. 20, 1419–1444 (2007)
Kysely, J.: Comparison of extremes in GCM-simulated, downscaled and observed central-European temperature series. Clim. Res. 20, 211–222 (2002)
Leadbetter, M.R., Lindgren, G., Rootzen, H.: Extremes and related properties of random sequences and processes, 336 p. Springer, New York (1983)
Meehl, G.A., Covey, C., Delworth, T., Latif, M., McAvaney, B., Mitchell, J.F.B., Stouffer, R.J., Taylor, K.E.: The WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset: a new era in climate change research. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 88, 1383–1394 (2007)
NIST/SEMATECH: e-Handbook of Statistical Methods (2006). http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook
Romeu, J.L.: Anderson–Darling: a goodness-of-fit test for small samples assumptions. In: Selected Topics in Assurance Related Technologies, vol. 10, no. 5. System Reliability Center, Rome, New York, USA (2003). http://src.alionscience.com/pdf/A_DTest.pdf
Santer, B.D., Taylor, K.E., Gleckler, P.J., Bonfils, C., Barnett, T.P., Pierce, D.W., Wigley, T.M.L., Mears, C., Wentz, F.J., Brueggemann, W., Gillett, N.P., Klein, S.A., Solomon, S., Stott, P.A., Wehner, M.F.: Incorporating model quality information in climate change detection and attribution studies. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 106, 14778–14783 (2009). doi:10.1073/pnas.0901736106
Stephens, M.A.: Goodness of fit for the extreme value distribution. Biometrika 64, 583–588 (1977)
Tebaldi, C., Smith, R.L., Nychka, D., Mearns, L.O.: Quantifying uncertainty in projections of regional climate change: a Bayesian approach to the analysis of multimodel ensembles. J. Clim. 18, 1524–1540 (2005)
Wehner, M.: Changes in daily precipitation and surface air temperature extremes in the IPCC AR4 models. US CLIVAR Variations 3, 5–9 (2005)
Wehner, M.F., Smith, R., Duffy, P., Bala, G.: The effect of horizontal resolution on simulation of very extreme US precipitation events in a global atmosphere model. Clim. Dyn. 34, 241–247 (2009)
Zwiers, F.W., Kharin, V.V.: Changes in the extremes of the climate simulated by CCC GCM2 under CO2 doubling. J. Clim. 11, 2200–2222 (1998)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Wehner, M. Sources of uncertainty in the extreme value statistics of climate data. Extremes 13, 205–217 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10687-010-0105-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10687-010-0105-7