Spatial-temporal rainfall simulation using generalized linear models

• Main Authors: Yang, C, Chandler, RE, Isham, VS, Wheater, HS
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION 2005
• Subjects: Atmospheric circulation patterns; Correlated binary variables; North-Atlantic oscillation; Precipitation occurrence; Variability; Ireland; West; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/5383/1/2004WR003739.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/5383/

We consider the problem of simulating sequences of daily rainfall at a network of sites in such a way as to reproduce a variety of properties realistically over a range of spatial scales. The properties of interest will vary between applications but typically will include some measures of "extreme'' rainfall in addition to means, variances, proportions of wet days, and autocorrelation structure. Our approach is to fit a generalized linear model (GLM) to rain gauge data and, with appropriate incorporation of intersite dependence structure, to use the GLM to generate simulated sequences. We illustrate the methodology using a data set from southern England and show that the GLM is able to reproduce many properties at spatial scales ranging from a single site to 2000 km 2 ( the limit of the available data).