Corruption of parameter behavior and regionalization by model and forcing data errors: A Bayesian example using the SNOW17 model

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2011-07-01
Authors
He, Minxue
Hogue, Terri
Franz, Kristie
Margulis, Steven
Vrugt, Jasper
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Franz, Kristie
Professor and Department Chair of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences
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Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

The Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences offers majors in three areas: Geology (traditional, environmental, or hydrogeology, for work as a surveyor or in mineral exploration), Meteorology (studies in global atmosphere, weather technology, and modeling for work as a meteorologist), and Earth Sciences (interdisciplinary mixture of geology, meteorology, and other natural sciences, with option of teacher-licensure).

History
The Department of Geology and Mining was founded in 1898. In 1902 its name changed to the Department of Geology. In 1965 its name changed to the Department of Earth Science. In 1977 its name changed to the Department of Earth Sciences. In 1989 its name changed to the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences.

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1898-present

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  • Department of Geology and Mining (1898-1902)
  • Department of Geology (1902-1965)
  • Department of Earth Science (1965-1977)
  • Department of Earth Sciences (1977-1989)

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Geological and Atmospheric Sciences
Abstract

The current study evaluates the impacts of various sources of uncertainty involved in hydrologic modeling on parameter behavior and regionalization utilizing different Bayesian likelihood functions and the Differential Evolution Adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) algorithm. The developed likelihood functions differ in their underlying assumptions and treatment of error sources. We apply the developed method to a snow accumulation and ablation model (National Weather Service SNOW17) and generate parameter ensembles to predict snow water equivalent (SWE). Observational data include precipitation and air temperature forcing along with SWE measurements from 24 sites with diverse hydroclimatic characteristics. A multiple linear regression model is used to construct regionalization relationships between model parameters and site characteristics. Results indicate that model structural uncertainty has the largest influence on SNOW17 parameter behavior. Precipitation uncertainty is the second largest source of uncertainty, showing greater impact at wetter sites. Measurement uncertainty in SWE tends to have little impact on the final model parameters and resulting SWE predictions. Considering all sources of uncertainty, parameters related to air temperature and snowfall fraction exhibit the strongest correlations to site characteristics. Parameters related to the length of the melting period also show high correlation to site characteristics. Finally, model structural uncertainty and precipitation uncertainty dramatically alter parameter regionalization relationships in comparison to cases where only uncertainty in model parameters or output measurements is considered. Our results demonstrate that accurate treatment of forcing, parameter, model structural, and calibration data errors is critical for deriving robust regionalization relationships.

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This article is from Water Resources Research 47 (2011): art. no. W07546, doi: 10.1029/2010WR009753. Posted with permission.

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Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2011
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