WorldWideScience

Sample records for evaluating point forecasts

  1. AN EVALUATION OF POINT AND DENSITY FORECASTS FOR SELECTED EU FARM GATE MILK PRICES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dennis Bergmann

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Fundamental changes to the common agricultural policy (CAP have led to greater market orientation which in turn has resulted in sharply increased variability of EU farm gate milk prices and thus farmers’ income. In this market environment reliable forecasts of farm gate milk prices are extremely important as farmers can make improved decisions with regards to cash flow management and budget preparation. In addition these forecasts may be used in setting fixed priced contracts between dairy farmers and processors thus providing certainty and reducing risk. In this study both point and density forecasts from various time series models for farm gate milk prices in Germany, Ireland and for an average EU price series are evaluated using a rolling window framework. Additionally forecasts of the individual models are combined using different combination schemes. The results of the out of sample evaluation show that ARIMA type models perform well on short forecast horizons (1 to 3 month while the structural time series approach performs well on longer forecast horizons (12 month. Finally combining individual forecasts of different models significantly improves the forecast performance for all forecast horizons.

  2. Marine Point Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    will link to the zone forecast and then allow further zooming to the point of interest whereas on the Honolulu, HI Chicago, IL Northern Indiana, IN Lake Charles, LA New Orleans, LA Boston, MA Caribou, ME

  3. Choice of Sample Split in Out-of-Sample Forecast Evaluation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Peter Reinhard; Timmermann, Allan

    , while conversely the power of forecast evaluation tests is strongest with long out-of-sample periods. To deal with size distortions, we propose a test statistic that is robust to the effect of considering multiple sample split points. Empirical applications to predictabil- ity of stock returns......Out-of-sample tests of forecast performance depend on how a given data set is split into estimation and evaluation periods, yet no guidance exists on how to choose the split point. Empirical forecast evaluation results can therefore be difficult to interpret, particularly when several values...... and inflation demonstrate that out-of-sample forecast evaluation results can critically depend on how the sample split is determined....

  4. Power plant site evaluation, electric energy demand forecasts - Douglas Point Site. Volume 3. Final report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wilson, J.W.

    1975-07-01

    This is part of a series of reports containing an evaluation of the proposed Douglas Point nuclear generating station site located on the Potomac River in Maryland 30 miles south of Washington, D.C. This report contains chapters on the Potomac Electric Power Company's market, forecasting future demand, modelling, a residential demand model, a nonresidential demand model, the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative Model, short term predictive accuracy, and total system requirements

  5. Applications of the gambling score in evaluating earthquake predictions and forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhuang, Jiancang; Zechar, Jeremy D.; Jiang, Changsheng; Console, Rodolfo; Murru, Maura; Falcone, Giuseppe

    2010-05-01

    This study presents a new method, namely the gambling score, for scoring the performance earthquake forecasts or predictions. Unlike most other scoring procedures that require a regular scheme of forecast and treat each earthquake equally, regardless their magnitude, this new scoring method compensates the risk that the forecaster has taken. Starting with a certain number of reputation points, once a forecaster makes a prediction or forecast, he is assumed to have betted some points of his reputation. The reference model, which plays the role of the house, determines how many reputation points the forecaster can gain if he succeeds, according to a fair rule, and also takes away the reputation points bet by the forecaster if he loses. This method is also extended to the continuous case of point process models, where the reputation points betted by the forecaster become a continuous mass on the space-time-magnitude range of interest. For discrete predictions, we apply this method to evaluate performance of Shebalin's predictions made by using the Reverse Tracing of Precursors (RTP) algorithm and of the outputs of the predictions from the Annual Consultation Meeting on Earthquake Tendency held by China Earthquake Administration. For the continuous case, we use it to compare the probability forecasts of seismicity in the Abruzzo region before and after the L'aquila earthquake based on the ETAS model and the PPE model.

  6. Non-parametric probabilistic forecasts of wind power: required properties and evaluation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pinson, Pierre; Nielsen, Henrik Aalborg; Møller, Jan Kloppenborg

    2007-01-01

    of a single or a set of quantile forecasts. The required and desirable properties of such probabilistic forecasts are defined and a framework for their evaluation is proposed. This framework is applied for evaluating the quality of two statistical methods producing full predictive distributions from point...

  7. Evaluation of Probabilistic Disease Forecasts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hughes, Gareth; Burnett, Fiona J

    2017-10-01

    The statistical evaluation of probabilistic disease forecasts often involves calculation of metrics defined conditionally on disease status, such as sensitivity and specificity. However, for the purpose of disease management decision making, metrics defined conditionally on the result of the forecast-predictive values-are also important, although less frequently reported. In this context, the application of scoring rules in the evaluation of probabilistic disease forecasts is discussed. An index of separation with application in the evaluation of probabilistic disease forecasts, described in the clinical literature, is also considered and its relation to scoring rules illustrated. Scoring rules provide a principled basis for the evaluation of probabilistic forecasts used in plant disease management. In particular, the decomposition of scoring rules into interpretable components is an advantageous feature of their application in the evaluation of disease forecasts.

  8. Evaluating Forecasting Models for Unemployment Rates by Gender in Selected European Countries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ksenija Dumičić

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The unemployment can be considered as one of the main economic problems. The aim of this article is to examine the differences in male and female unemployment rates in selected European countries and to predict their future trends by using different statistical forecasting models. Furthermore, the impact of adding a new data point on the selection of the most appropriate statistical forecasting model and on the overall forecasting errors values is also evaluated. Male and female unemployment rates are observed for twelve European countries in the period from 1991 to 2014. Four statistical forecasting models have been selected and applied and the most appropriate model is considered to be the one with the lowest overall forecasting errors values. The analysis has shown that in the period from 1991 to 2014 the decreasing trend of unemployment rates in the short-run is forecasted for more Eastern Balkan than the EU-28 countries. An additional data point for male and female unemployment rates in 2014 led to somewhat smaller forecasting errors in more than half of the observed countries. However, the additional data point does not necessarily improve forecasting performances of the used statistical forecasting models.

  9. Short-Term and Long-Term Forecasting for the 3D Point Position Changing by Using Artificial Neural Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eleni-Georgia Alevizakou

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Forecasting is one of the most growing areas in most sciences attracting the attention of many researchers for more extensive study. Therefore, the goal of this study is to develop an integrated forecasting methodology based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN, which is a modern and attractive intelligent technique. The final result is to provide short-term and long-term forecasts for point position changing, i.e., the displacement or deformation of the surface they belong to. The motivation was the combination of two thoughts, the insertion of the forecasting concept in Geodesy as in the most scientific disciplines (e.g., Economics, Medicine and the desire to know the future position of any point on a construction or on the earth’s crustal. This methodology was designed to be accurate, stable and general for different kind of geodetic data. The basic procedure consists of the definition of the forecasting problem, the preliminary data analysis (data pre-processing, the definition of the most suitable ANN, its evaluation using the proper criteria and finally the production of forecasts. The methodology gives particular emphasis on the stages of the pre-processing and the evaluation. Additionally, the importance of the prediction intervals (PI is emphasized. A case study, which includes geodetic data from the year 2003 to the year 2016—namely X, Y, Z coordinates—is implemented. The data were acquired by 1000 permanent Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS stations. During this case study, 2016 ANNs—with different hyper-parameters—are trained and tested for short-term forecasting and 2016 for long-term forecasting, for each of the GNSS stations. In addition, other conventional statistical forecasting methods are used for the same purpose using the same data set. Finally the most appropriate Non-linear Autoregressive Recurrent network (NAR or Non-linear Autoregressive with eXogenous inputs (NARX for the forecasting of 3D point

  10. A travel time forecasting model based on change-point detection method

    Science.gov (United States)

    LI, Shupeng; GUANG, Xiaoping; QIAN, Yongsheng; ZENG, Junwei

    2017-06-01

    Travel time parameters obtained from road traffic sensors data play an important role in traffic management practice. A travel time forecasting model is proposed for urban road traffic sensors data based on the method of change-point detection in this paper. The first-order differential operation is used for preprocessing over the actual loop data; a change-point detection algorithm is designed to classify the sequence of large number of travel time data items into several patterns; then a travel time forecasting model is established based on autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. By computer simulation, different control parameters are chosen for adaptive change point search for travel time series, which is divided into several sections of similar state.Then linear weight function is used to fit travel time sequence and to forecast travel time. The results show that the model has high accuracy in travel time forecasting.

  11. Forecasting Macedonian Business Cycle Turning Points Using Qual Var Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petrovska Magdalena

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at assessing the usefulness of leading indicators in business cycle research and forecast. Initially we test the predictive power of the economic sentiment indicator (ESI within a static probit model as a leading indicator, commonly perceived to be able to provide a reliable summary of the current economic conditions. We further proceed analyzing how well an extended set of indicators performs in forecasting turning points of the Macedonian business cycle by employing the Qual VAR approach of Dueker (2005. In continuation, we evaluate the quality of the selected indicators in pseudo-out-of-sample context. The results show that the use of survey-based indicators as a complement to macroeconomic data work satisfactory well in capturing the business cycle developments in Macedonia.

  12. On density forecast evaluation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Diks, C.

    2008-01-01

    Traditionally, probability integral transforms (PITs) have been popular means for evaluating density forecasts. For an ideal density forecast, the PITs should be uniformly distributed on the unit interval and independent. However, this is only a necessary condition, and not a sufficient one, as

  13. Point Reyes, California Tsunami Forecast Grids for MOST Model

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Point Reyes, California Forecast Model Grids provides bathymetric data strictly for tsunami inundation modeling with the Method of Splitting Tsunami (MOST)...

  14. Sand Point, Alaska Tsunami Forecast Grids for MOST Model

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Sand Point, Alaska Forecast Model Grids provides bathymetric data strictly for tsunami inundation modeling with the Method of Splitting Tsunami (MOST) model....

  15. Toke Point, Washington Tsunami Forecast Grids for MOST Model

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Toke Point, Washington Forecast Model Grids provides bathymetric data strictly for tsunami inundation modeling with the Method of Splitting Tsunami (MOST) model....

  16. Star point centroid algorithm based on background forecast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jin; Zhao, Rujin; Zhu, Nan

    2014-09-01

    The calculation of star point centroid is a key step of improving star tracker measuring error. A star map photoed by APS detector includes several noises which have a great impact on veracity of calculation of star point centroid. Through analysis of characteristic of star map noise, an algorithm of calculation of star point centroid based on background forecast is presented in this paper. The experiment proves the validity of the algorithm. Comparing with classic algorithm, this algorithm not only improves veracity of calculation of star point centroid, but also does not need calibration data memory. This algorithm is applied successfully in a certain star tracker.

  17. Forecasting Global Rainfall for Points Using ECMWF's Global Ensemble and Its Applications in Flood Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pillosu, F. M.; Hewson, T.; Mazzetti, C.

    2017-12-01

    Prediction of local extreme rainfall has historically been the remit of nowcasting and high resolution limited area modelling, which represent only limited areas, may not be spatially accurate, give reasonable results only for limited lead times (based statistical post-processing software ("ecPoint-Rainfall, ecPR", operational in 2017) that uses ECMWF Ensemble (ENS) output to deliver global probabilistic rainfall forecasts for points up to day 10. Firstly, ecPR applies a new notion of "remote calibration", which 1) allows us to replicate a multi-centennial training period using only one year of data, and 2) provides forecasts for anywhere in the world. Secondly, the software applies an understanding of how different rainfall generation mechanisms lead to different degrees of sub-grid variability in rainfall totals, and of where biases in the model can be improved upon. A long-term verification has shown that the post-processed rainfall has better reliability and resolution at every lead time if compared with ENS, and for large totals, ecPR outputs have the same skill at day 5 that the raw ENS has at day 1 (ROC area metric). ecPR could be used as input for hydrological models if its probabilistic output is modified accordingly to the inputs requirements for hydrological models. Indeed, ecPR does not provide information on where the highest total is likely to occur inside the gridbox, nor on the spatial distribution of rainfall values nearby. "Scenario forecasts" could be a solution. They are derived from locating the rainfall peak in sensitive positions (e.g. urban areas), and then redistributing the remaining quantities in the gridbox modifying traditional spatial correlation characterization methodologies (e.g. variogram analysis) in order to take account, for instance, of the type of rainfall forecast (stratiform, convective). Such an approach could be a turning point in the field of medium-range global real-time riverine flood forecasts. This presentation will

  18. On the Economic Evaluation of Volatility Forecasts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Voev, Valeri

    We analyze the applicability of economic criteria for volatility forecast evaluation based on unconditional measures of portfolio performance. The main theoretical finding is that such unconditional measures generally fail to rank conditional forecasts correctly due to the presence of a bias term...... driven by the variability of the conditional mean and portfolio weights. Simulations and a small empirical study suggest that the bias can be empirically substantial and lead to distortions in forecast evaluation. An important implication is that forecasting superiority of models using high frequency...

  19. Status of mineral resources evaluation and forecast

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ma Hanfeng; Li Ziying; Luo Yi; Li Shengxiang; Sun Wenpeng

    2007-01-01

    The work of resources evaluation and forecast is a focus to the governments of every country in the world, it is related to the establishment of strategic policy on the national mineral resources. In order to quantitatively evaluate the general potential of uranium resources in China and better forecast uranium deposits, this paper briefly introduces the method of evaluating total amount of mineral resources, especially 6 usual prospective methods which are recommended in international geology comparison programs, as well as principle of usual mineral resources quantitative prediction and its steps. The work history of mineral resources evaluation and forecast is reviewed concisely. Advantages and disadvantages of each method, their application field and condition are also explained briefly. At last, the history of uranium resources evaluation and forecast in China and its status are concisely outlined. (authors)

  20. Evaluation of the performance of DIAS ionospheric forecasting models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tsagouri Ioanna

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Nowcasting and forecasting ionospheric products and services for the European region are regularly provided since August 2006 through the European Digital upper Atmosphere Server (DIAS, http://dias.space.noa.gr. Currently, DIAS ionospheric forecasts are based on the online implementation of two models: (i the solar wind driven autoregression model for ionospheric short-term forecast (SWIF, which combines historical and real-time ionospheric observations with solar-wind parameters obtained in real time at the L1 point from NASA ACE spacecraft, and (ii the geomagnetically correlated autoregression model (GCAM, which is a time series forecasting method driven by a synthetic geomagnetic index. In this paper we investigate the operational ability and the accuracy of both DIAS models carrying out a metrics-based evaluation of their performance under all possible conditions. The analysis was established on the systematic comparison between models’ predictions with actual observations obtained over almost one solar cycle (1998–2007 at four European ionospheric locations (Athens, Chilton, Juliusruh and Rome and on the comparison of the models’ performance against two simple prediction strategies, the median- and the persistence-based predictions during storm conditions. The results verify operational validity for both models and quantify their prediction accuracy under all possible conditions in support of operational applications but also of comparative studies in assessing or expanding the current ionospheric forecasting capabilities.

  1. Evaluating FOMC forecast ranges: an interval data approach

    OpenAIRE

    Henning Fischer; Marta García-Bárzana; Peter Tillmann; Peter Winker

    2012-01-01

    The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve publishes the range of members' forecasts for key macroeconomic variables, but not the distribution of forecasts within this range. To evaluate these projections, previous papers compare the midpoint of the ranges with the realized outcome. This paper proposes a new approach to forecast evaluation that takes account of the interval nature of projections. It is shown that using the conventional Mincer-Zarnowitz approach to ev...

  2. Point and interval forecasts of mortality rates and life expectancy: A comparison of ten principal component methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Han Lin Shang

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available Using the age- and sex-specific data of 14 developed countries, we compare the point and interval forecast accuracy and bias of ten principal component methods for forecasting mortality rates and life expectancy. The ten methods are variants and extensions of the Lee-Carter method. Based on one-step forecast errors, the weighted Hyndman-Ullah method provides the most accurate point forecasts of mortality rates and the Lee-Miller method is the least biased. For the accuracy and bias of life expectancy, the weighted Hyndman-Ullah method performs the best for female mortality and the Lee-Miller method for male mortality. While all methods underestimate variability in mortality rates, the more complex Hyndman-Ullah methods are more accurate than the simpler methods. The weighted Hyndman-Ullah method provides the most accurate interval forecasts for mortality rates, while the robust Hyndman-Ullah method provides the best interval forecast accuracy for life expectancy.

  3. Hydro-meteorological evaluation of downscaled global ensemble rainfall forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaborit, Étienne; Anctil, François; Fortin, Vincent; Pelletier, Geneviève

    2013-04-01

    Ensemble rainfall forecasts are of high interest for decision making, as they provide an explicit and dynamic assessment of the uncertainty in the forecast (Ruiz et al. 2009). However, for hydrological forecasting, their low resolution currently limits their use to large watersheds (Maraun et al. 2010). In order to bridge this gap, various implementations of the statistic-stochastic multi-fractal downscaling technique presented by Perica and Foufoula-Georgiou (1996) were compared, bringing Environment Canada's global ensemble rainfall forecasts from a 100 by 70-km resolution down to 6 by 4-km, while increasing each pixel's rainfall variance and preserving its original mean. For comparison purposes, simpler methods were also implemented such as the bi-linear interpolation, which disaggregates global forecasts without modifying their variance. The downscaled meteorological products were evaluated using different scores and diagrams, from both a meteorological and a hydrological view points. The meteorological evaluation was conducted comparing the forecasted rainfall depths against nine days of observed values taken from Québec City rain gauge database. These 9 days present strong precipitation events occurring during the summer of 2009. For the hydrologic evaluation, the hydrological models SWMM5 and (a modified version of) GR4J were implemented on a small 6 km2 urban catchment located in the Québec City region. Ensemble hydrologic forecasts with a time step of 3 hours were then performed over a 3-months period of the summer of 2010 using the original and downscaled ensemble rainfall forecasts. The most important conclusions of this work are that the overall quality of the forecasts was preserved during the disaggregation procedure and that the disaggregated products using this variance-enhancing method were of similar quality than bi-linear interpolation products. However, variance and dispersion of the different members were, of course, much improved for the

  4. Evaluation of TIGGE Ensemble Forecasts of Precipitation in Distinct Climate Regions in Iran

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aminyavari, Saleh; Saghafian, Bahram; Delavar, Majid

    2018-04-01

    The application of numerical weather prediction (NWP) products is increasing dramatically. Existing reports indicate that ensemble predictions have better skill than deterministic forecasts. In this study, numerical ensemble precipitation forecasts in the TIGGE database were evaluated using deterministic, dichotomous (yes/no), and probabilistic techniques over Iran for the period 2008-16. Thirteen rain gauges spread over eight homogeneous precipitation regimes were selected for evaluation. The Inverse Distance Weighting and Kriging methods were adopted for interpolation of the prediction values, downscaled to the stations at lead times of one to three days. To enhance the forecast quality, NWP values were post-processed via Bayesian Model Averaging. The results showed that ECMWF had better scores than other products. However, products of all centers underestimated precipitation in high precipitation regions while overestimating precipitation in other regions. This points to a systematic bias in forecasts and demands application of bias correction techniques. Based on dichotomous evaluation, NCEP did better at most stations, although all centers overpredicted the number of precipitation events. Compared to those of ECMWF and NCEP, UKMO yielded higher scores in mountainous regions, but performed poorly at other selected stations. Furthermore, the evaluations showed that all centers had better skill in wet than in dry seasons. The quality of post-processed predictions was better than those of the raw predictions. In conclusion, the accuracy of the NWP predictions made by the selected centers could be classified as medium over Iran, while post-processing of predictions is recommended to improve the quality.

  5. Updating the FORECAST formative evaluation approach and some implications for ameliorating theory failure, implementation failure, and evaluation failure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katz, Jason; Wandersman, Abraham; Goodman, Robert M.; Griffin, Sarah; Wilson, Dawn K.; Schillaci, Michael

    2013-01-01

    Historically, there has been considerable variability in how formative evaluation has been conceptualized and practiced. FORmative Evaluation Consultation And Systems Technique (FORECAST) is a formative evaluation approach that develops a set of models and processes that can be used across settings and times, while allowing for local adaptations and innovations. FORECAST integrates specific models and tools to improve limitations in program theory, implementation, and evaluation. In the period since its initial use in a federally funded community prevention project in the early 1990s, evaluators have incorporated important formative evaluation innovations into FORECAST, including the integration of feedback loops and proximal outcome evaluation. In addition, FORECAST has been applied in a randomized community research trial. In this article, we describe updates to FORECAST and the implications of FORECAST for ameliorating failures in program theory, implementation, and evaluation. PMID:23624204

  6. Forecasting Tools Point to Fishing Hotspots

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-01-01

    Private weather forecaster WorldWinds Inc. of Slidell, Louisiana has employed satellite-gathered oceanic data from Marshall Space Flight Center to create a service that is every fishing enthusiast s dream. The company's FishBytes system uses information about sea surface temperature and chlorophyll levels to forecast favorable conditions for certain fish populations. Transmitting the data to satellite radio subscribers, FishBytes provides maps that guide anglers to the areas they are most likely to make their favorite catch.

  7. High-frequency volatility combine forecast evaluations: An empirical study for DAX

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wen Cheong Chin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to examine the benefits of combining realized volatility, higher power variation volatility and nearest neighbour truncation volatility in the forecasts of financial stock market of DAX. A structural break heavy-tailed heterogeneous autoregressive model under the heterogeneous market hypothesis specification is employed to capture the stylized facts of high-frequency empirical data. Using selected averaging forecast methods, the forecast weights are assigned based on the simple average, simple median, least squares and mean square error. The empirical results indicated that the combination of forecasts in general shown superiority under four evaluation criteria regardless which proxy is set as the actual volatility. As a conclusion, we summarized that the forecast performance is influenced by three factors namely the types of volatility proxy, forecast methods (individual or averaging forecast and lastly the type of actual forecast value used in the evaluation criteria.

  8. Refined Diebold-Mariano Test Methods for the Evaluation of Wind Power Forecasting Models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hao Chen

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The scientific evaluation methodology for the forecast accuracy of wind power forecasting models is an important issue in the domain of wind power forecasting. However, traditional forecast evaluation criteria, such as Mean Squared Error (MSE and Mean Absolute Error (MAE, have limitations in application to some degree. In this paper, a modern evaluation criterion, the Diebold-Mariano (DM test, is introduced. The DM test can discriminate the significant differences of forecasting accuracy between different models based on the scheme of quantitative analysis. Furthermore, the augmented DM test with rolling windows approach is proposed to give a more strict forecasting evaluation. By extending the loss function to an asymmetric structure, the asymmetric DM test is proposed. Case study indicates that the evaluation criteria based on DM test can relieve the influence of random sample disturbance. Moreover, the proposed augmented DM test can provide more evidence when the cost of changing models is expensive, and the proposed asymmetric DM test can add in the asymmetric factor, and provide practical evaluation of wind power forecasting models. It is concluded that the two refined DM tests can provide reference to the comprehensive evaluation for wind power forecasting models.

  9. Evaluation of bias-correction methods for ensemble streamflow volume forecasts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. Hashino

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Ensemble prediction systems are used operationally to make probabilistic streamflow forecasts for seasonal time scales. However, hydrological models used for ensemble streamflow prediction often have simulation biases that degrade forecast quality and limit the operational usefulness of the forecasts. This study evaluates three bias-correction methods for ensemble streamflow volume forecasts. All three adjust the ensemble traces using a transformation derived with simulated and observed flows from a historical simulation. The quality of probabilistic forecasts issued when using the three bias-correction methods is evaluated using a distributions-oriented verification approach. Comparisons are made of retrospective forecasts of monthly flow volumes for a north-central United States basin (Des Moines River, Iowa, issued sequentially for each month over a 48-year record. The results show that all three bias-correction methods significantly improve forecast quality by eliminating unconditional biases and enhancing the potential skill. Still, subtle differences in the attributes of the bias-corrected forecasts have important implications for their use in operational decision-making. Diagnostic verification distinguishes these attributes in a context meaningful for decision-making, providing criteria to choose among bias-correction methods with comparable skill.

  10. Retrospective Evaluation of the Long-Term CSEP-Italy Earthquake Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Werner, M. J.; Zechar, J. D.; Marzocchi, W.; Wiemer, S.

    2010-12-01

    On 1 August 2009, the global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) launched a prospective and comparative earthquake predictability experiment in Italy. The goal of the CSEP-Italy experiment is to test earthquake occurrence hypotheses that have been formalized as probabilistic earthquake forecasts over temporal scales that range from days to years. In the first round of forecast submissions, members of the CSEP-Italy Working Group presented eighteen five-year and ten-year earthquake forecasts to the European CSEP Testing Center at ETH Zurich. We considered the twelve time-independent earthquake forecasts among this set and evaluated them with respect to past seismicity data from two Italian earthquake catalogs. Here, we present the results of tests that measure the consistency of the forecasts with the past observations. Besides being an evaluation of the submitted time-independent forecasts, this exercise provided insight into a number of important issues in predictability experiments with regard to the specification of the forecasts, the performance of the tests, and the trade-off between the robustness of results and experiment duration.

  11. Evaluating Extensions to Coherent Mortality Forecasting Models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Syazreen Shair

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Coherent models were developed recently to forecast the mortality of two or more sub-populations simultaneously and to ensure long-term non-divergent mortality forecasts of sub-populations. This paper evaluates the forecast accuracy of two recently-published coherent mortality models, the Poisson common factor and the product-ratio functional models. These models are compared to each other and the corresponding independent models, as well as the original Lee–Carter model. All models are applied to age-gender-specific mortality data for Australia and Malaysia and age-gender-ethnicity-specific data for Malaysia. The out-of-sample forecast error of log death rates, male-to-female death rate ratios and life expectancy at birth from each model are compared and examined across groups. The results show that, in terms of overall accuracy, the forecasts of both coherent models are consistently more accurate than those of the independent models for Australia and for Malaysia, but the relative performance differs by forecast horizon. Although the product-ratio functional model outperforms the Poisson common factor model for Australia, the Poisson common factor is more accurate for Malaysia. For the ethnic groups application, ethnic-coherence gives better results than gender-coherence. The results provide evidence that coherent models are preferable to independent models for forecasting sub-populations’ mortality.

  12. FORECASTING OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF NEW VEHICLES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    O. S. Krasheninin

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. The research work focuses on forecasting of performance evaluation of the tractive and non-tractive vehicles that will satisfy and meet the needs and requirements of the railway industry, which is constantly evolving. Methodology. Analysis of the technical condition of the existing fleet of rolling stock (tractive and non-tractive of Ukrainian Railways shows a substantial reduction that occurs in connection with its moral and physical wear and tear, as well as insufficient and limited purchase of new units of the tractive and non-tractive rolling stock in the desired quantity. In this situation there is a necessity of search of the methods for determination of rolling stock technical characteristics. One of such urgent and effective measures is to conduct forecasting of the defining characteristics of the vehicles based on the processes of their reproduction in conditions of limited resources using a continuous exponential function. The function of the growth rate of the projected figure degree for the vehicle determines the logistic characteristic that with unlimited resources has the form of an exponent, and with low ones – that of a line. Findings. The data obtained according to the proposed method allowed determining the expected (future value, that is the ratio of load to volume of the body for non-tractive rolling stock (gondola cars and weight-to-power for tractive rolling stock, the degree of forecast reliability and the standard forecast error, which show high prediction accuracy for the completed procedure. As a result, this will allow estimating the required characteristics of vehicles in the forecast year with high accuracy. Originality. The concept of forecasting the characteristics of the vehicles for decision-making on the evaluation of their prospects was proposed. Practical value. The forecasting methodology will reliably determine the technical parameters of tractive and non-tractive rolling stock, which will meet

  13. On evaluation of ensemble precipitation forecasts with observation-based ensembles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Jaun

    2007-04-01

    Full Text Available Spatial interpolation of precipitation data is uncertain. How important is this uncertainty and how can it be considered in evaluation of high-resolution probabilistic precipitation forecasts? These questions are discussed by experimental evaluation of the COSMO consortium's limited-area ensemble prediction system COSMO-LEPS. The applied performance measure is the often used Brier skill score (BSS. The observational references in the evaluation are (a analyzed rain gauge data by ordinary Kriging and (b ensembles of interpolated rain gauge data by stochastic simulation. This permits the consideration of either a deterministic reference (the event is observed or not with 100% certainty or a probabilistic reference that makes allowance for uncertainties in spatial averaging. The evaluation experiments show that the evaluation uncertainties are substantial even for the large area (41 300 km2 of Switzerland with a mean rain gauge distance as good as 7 km: the one- to three-day precipitation forecasts have skill decreasing with forecast lead time but the one- and two-day forecast performances differ not significantly.

  14. Demand Forecasting: An Evaluation of DODs Accuracy Metric and Navys Procedures

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-06-01

    dataset ci = unit cost for item i fi = demand forecast for item i 28 ai = actual demand for item i A close look at fCIMIP metric reveals a...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA MBA PROFESSIONAL REPORT DEMAND FORECASTING : AN EVALUATION OF DOD’S ACCURACY...June 2016 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED MBA professional report 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE DEMAND FORECASTING : AN EVALUATION OF DOD’S ACCURACY

  15. Evaluating dynamic covariance matrix forecasting and portfolio optimization

    OpenAIRE

    Sendstad, Lars Hegnes; Holten, Dag Martin

    2012-01-01

    In this thesis we have evaluated the covariance forecasting ability of the simple moving average, the exponential moving average and the dynamic conditional correlation models. Overall we found that a dynamic portfolio can gain significant improvements by implementing a multivariate GARCH forecast. We further divided the global investment universe into sectors and regions in order to investigate the relative portfolio performance of several asset allocation strategies with both variance and c...

  16. Application research for 4D technology in flood forecasting and evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Ziwei; Liu, Yutong; Cao, Hongjie

    1998-08-01

    In order to monitor the region which disaster flood happened frequently in China, satisfy the great need of province governments for high accuracy monitoring and evaluated data for disaster and improve the efficiency for repelling disaster, under the Ninth Five-year National Key Technologies Programme, the method was researched for flood forecasting and evaluation using satellite and aerial remoted sensed image and land monitor data. The effective and practicable flood forecasting and evaluation system was established and DongTing Lake was selected as the test site. Modern Digital photogrammetry, remote sensing and GIS technology was used in this system, the disastrous flood could be forecasted and loss can be evaluated base on '4D' (DEM -- Digital Elevation Model, DOQ -- Digital OrthophotoQuads, DRG -- Digital Raster Graph, DTI -- Digital Thematic Information) disaster background database. The technology of gathering and establishing method for '4D' disaster environment background database, application technology for flood forecasting and evaluation based on '4D' background data and experimental results for DongTing Lake test site were introduced in detail in this paper.

  17. Evaluating information in multiple horizon forecasts. The DOE's energy price forecasts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sanders, Dwight R.; Manfredo, Mark R.; Boris, Keith

    2009-01-01

    The United States Department of Energy's (DOE) quarterly price forecasts for energy commodities are examined to determine the incremental information provided at the one-through four-quarter forecast horizons. A direct test for determining information content at alternative forecast horizons, developed by Vuchelen and Gutierrez [Vuchelen, J. and Gutierrez, M.-I. 'A Direct Test of the Information Content of the OECD Growth Forecasts.' International Journal of Forecasting. 21(2005):103-117.], is used. The results suggest that the DOE's price forecasts for crude oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel do indeed provide incremental information out to three-quarters ahead, while natural gas and electricity forecasts are informative out to the four-quarter horizon. In contrast, the DOE's coal price forecasts at two-, three-, and four-quarters ahead provide no incremental information beyond that provided for the one-quarter horizon. Recommendations of how to use these results for making forecast adjustments is also provided. (author)

  18. Evaluation of probabilistic forecasts with the scoringRules package

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, Alexander; Krüger, Fabian; Lerch, Sebastian

    2017-04-01

    Over the last decades probabilistic forecasts in the form of predictive distributions have become popular in many scientific disciplines. With the proliferation of probabilistic models arises the need for decision-theoretically principled tools to evaluate the appropriateness of models and forecasts in a generalized way in order to better understand sources of prediction errors and to improve the models. Proper scoring rules are functions S(F,y) which evaluate the accuracy of a forecast distribution F , given that an outcome y was observed. In coherence with decision-theoretical principles they allow to compare alternative models, a crucial ability given the variety of theories, data sources and statistical specifications that is available in many situations. This contribution presents the software package scoringRules for the statistical programming language R, which provides functions to compute popular scoring rules such as the continuous ranked probability score for a variety of distributions F that come up in applied work. For univariate variables, two main classes are parametric distributions like normal, t, or gamma distributions, and distributions that are not known analytically, but are indirectly described through a sample of simulation draws. For example, ensemble weather forecasts take this form. The scoringRules package aims to be a convenient dictionary-like reference for computing scoring rules. We offer state of the art implementations of several known (but not routinely applied) formulas, and implement closed-form expressions that were previously unavailable. Whenever more than one implementation variant exists, we offer statistically principled default choices. Recent developments include the addition of scoring rules to evaluate multivariate forecast distributions. The use of the scoringRules package is illustrated in an example on post-processing ensemble forecasts of temperature.

  19. Ideal point error for model assessment in data-driven river flow forecasting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. W. Dawson

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available When analysing the performance of hydrological models in river forecasting, researchers use a number of diverse statistics. Although some statistics appear to be used more regularly in such analyses than others, there is a distinct lack of consistency in evaluation, making studies undertaken by different authors or performed at different locations difficult to compare in a meaningful manner. Moreover, even within individual reported case studies, substantial contradictions are found to occur between one measure of performance and another. In this paper we examine the ideal point error (IPE metric – a recently introduced measure of model performance that integrates a number of recognised metrics in a logical way. Having a single, integrated measure of performance is appealing as it should permit more straightforward model inter-comparisons. However, this is reliant on a transferrable standardisation of the individual metrics that are combined to form the IPE. This paper examines one potential option for standardisation: the use of naive model benchmarking.

  20. The Variance-covariance Method using IOWGA Operator for Tourism Forecast Combination

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liangping Wu

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Three combination methods commonly used in tourism forecasting are the simple average method, the variance-covariance method and the discounted MSFE method. These methods assign the different weights that can not change at each time point to each individual forecasting model. In this study, we introduce the IOWGA operator combination method which can overcome the defect of previous three combination methods into tourism forecasting. Moreover, we further investigate the performance of the four combination methods through the theoretical evaluation and the forecasting evaluation. The results of the theoretical evaluation show that the IOWGA operator combination method obtains extremely well performance and outperforms the other forecast combination methods. Furthermore, the IOWGA operator combination method can be of well forecast performance and performs almost the same to the variance-covariance combination method for the forecasting evaluation. The IOWGA operator combination method mainly reflects the maximization of improving forecasting accuracy and the variance-covariance combination method mainly reflects the decrease of the forecast error. For future research, it may be worthwhile introducing and examining other new combination methods that may improve forecasting accuracy or employing other techniques to control the time for updating the weights in combined forecasts.

  1. Gambling scores for earthquake predictions and forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhuang, Jiancang

    2010-04-01

    This paper presents a new method, namely the gambling score, for scoring the performance earthquake forecasts or predictions. Unlike most other scoring procedures that require a regular scheme of forecast and treat each earthquake equally, regardless their magnitude, this new scoring method compensates the risk that the forecaster has taken. Starting with a certain number of reputation points, once a forecaster makes a prediction or forecast, he is assumed to have betted some points of his reputation. The reference model, which plays the role of the house, determines how many reputation points the forecaster can gain if he succeeds, according to a fair rule, and also takes away the reputation points betted by the forecaster if he loses. This method is also extended to the continuous case of point process models, where the reputation points betted by the forecaster become a continuous mass on the space-time-magnitude range of interest. We also calculate the upper bound of the gambling score when the true model is a renewal process, the stress release model or the ETAS model and when the reference model is the Poisson model.

  2. Evaluating Downscaling Methods for Seasonal Climate Forecasts over East Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, J. Brent; Robertson, Franklin R.; Bosilovich, Michael; Lyon, Bradfield; Funk, Chris

    2013-01-01

    The U.S. National Multi-Model Ensemble seasonal forecasting system is providing hindcast and real-time data streams to be used in assessing and improving seasonal predictive capacity. The NASA / USAID SERVIR project, which leverages satellite and modeling-based resources for environmental decision making in developing nations, is focusing on the evaluation of NMME forecasts specifically for use in impact modeling within hub regions including East Africa, the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region and Mesoamerica. One of the participating models in NMME is the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS5). This work will present an intercomparison of downscaling methods using the GEOS5 seasonal forecasts of temperature and precipitation over East Africa. The current seasonal forecasting system provides monthly averaged forecast anomalies. These anomalies must be spatially downscaled and temporally disaggregated for use in application modeling (e.g. hydrology, agriculture). There are several available downscaling methodologies that can be implemented to accomplish this goal. Selected methods include both a non-homogenous hidden Markov model and an analogue based approach. A particular emphasis will be placed on quantifying the ability of different methods to capture the intermittency of precipitation within both the short and long rain seasons. Further, the ability to capture spatial covariances will be assessed. Both probabilistic and deterministic skill measures will be evaluated over the hindcast period

  3. Transport project evaluation: feasibility risk assessment and scenario forecasting

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Salling, Kim Bang; Leleur, Steen

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents a new approach to transport project assessment in terms of feasibility risk assessment and reference class forecasting. Conventionally, transport project assessment is based upon a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) where evaluation criteria such as Benefit Cost Ratios (BCR...... on the preliminary construction cost estimates. Hereafter, a quantitative risk analysis is provided making use of Monte Carlo simulation. This approach facilitates random input parameters based upon reference class forecasting, hence, a parameter data fit has been performed in order to obtain validated probability...... Scenario Forecasting (RSF) frame. The RSF is anchored in the cost-benefit analysis; thus, it provides decision-makers with a quantitative mean of assessing the transport infrastructure project. First, the RSF method introduces uncertainties within the CBA by applying Optimism Bias uplifts...

  4. Using forecast modelling to evaluate treatment effects in single-group interrupted time series analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Linden, Ariel

    2018-05-11

    Interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) is an evaluation methodology in which a single treatment unit's outcome is studied serially over time and the intervention is expected to "interrupt" the level and/or trend of that outcome. ITSA is commonly evaluated using methods which may produce biased results if model assumptions are violated. In this paper, treatment effects are alternatively assessed by using forecasting methods to closely fit the preintervention observations and then forecast the post-intervention trend. A treatment effect may be inferred if the actual post-intervention observations diverge from the forecasts by some specified amount. The forecasting approach is demonstrated using the effect of California's Proposition 99 for reducing cigarette sales. Three forecast models are fit to the preintervention series-linear regression (REG), Holt-Winters (HW) non-seasonal smoothing, and autoregressive moving average (ARIMA)-and forecasts are generated into the post-intervention period. The actual observations are then compared with the forecasts to assess intervention effects. The preintervention data were fit best by HW, followed closely by ARIMA. REG fit the data poorly. The actual post-intervention observations were above the forecasts in HW and ARIMA, suggesting no intervention effect, but below the forecasts in the REG (suggesting a treatment effect), thereby raising doubts about any definitive conclusion of a treatment effect. In a single-group ITSA, treatment effects are likely to be biased if the model is misspecified. Therefore, evaluators should consider using forecast models to accurately fit the preintervention data and generate plausible counterfactual forecasts, thereby improving causal inference of treatment effects in single-group ITSA studies. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  5. Evaluating winds and vertical wind shear from Weather Research and Forecasting model forecasts using seven planetary boundary layer schemes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Draxl, Caroline; Hahmann, Andrea N.; Pena Diaz, Alfredo

    2014-01-01

    with different PBL parameterizations at one coastal site over western Denmark. The evaluation focuses on determining which PBL parameterization performs best for wind energy forecasting, and presenting a validation methodology that takes into account wind speed at different heights. Winds speeds at heights...... regarding wind energy at these levels partly depends on the formulation and implementation of planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterizations in these models. This study evaluates wind speeds and vertical wind shears simulated by theWeather Research and Forecasting model using seven sets of simulations...

  6. Seasonal Drought Forecasting for Latin America Using the ECMWF S4 Forecast System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hugo Carrão

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Meaningful seasonal prediction of drought conditions is key information for end-users and water managers, particularly in Latin America where crop and livestock production are key for many regional economies. However, there are still not many studies of the feasibility of such a forecasts at continental level in the region. In this study, precipitation predictions from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather (ECMWF seasonal forecast system S4 are combined with observed precipitation data to generate forecasts of the standardized precipitation index (SPI for Latin America, and their skill is evaluated over the hindcast period 1981–2010. The value-added utility in using the ensemble S4 forecast to predict the SPI is identified by comparing the skill of its forecasts with a baseline skill based solely on their climatological characteristics. As expected, skill of the S4-generated SPI forecasts depends on the season, location, and the specific aggregation period considered (the 3- and 6-month SPI were evaluated. Added skill from the S4 for lead times equaling the SPI accumulation periods is primarily present in regions with high intra-annual precipitation variability, and is found mostly for the months at the end of the dry seasons for 3-month SPI, and half-yearly periods for 6-month SPI. The ECMWF forecast system behaves better than the climatology for clustered grid points in the North of South America, the Northeast of Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brazil and Mexico. The skillful regions are similar for the SPI3 and -6, but become reduced in extent for the severest SPI categories. Forecasting different magnitudes of meteorological drought intensity on a seasonal time scale still remains a challenge. However, the ECMWF S4 forecasting system does capture the occurrence of drought events for the aforementioned regions and seasons reasonably well. In the near term, the largest advances in the prediction of meteorological drought for Latin

  7. Retrospective evaluation of the five-year and ten-year CSEP-Italy earthquake forecasts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan Wiemer

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available On August 1, 2009, the global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP launched a prospective and comparative earthquake predictability experiment in Italy. The goal of this CSEP-Italy experiment is to test earthquake occurrence hypotheses that have been formalized as probabilistic earthquake forecasts over temporal scales that range from days to years. In the first round of forecast submissions, members of the CSEP-Italy Working Group presented 18 five-year and ten-year earthquake forecasts to the European CSEP Testing Center at ETH Zurich. We have considered here the twelve time-independent earthquake forecasts among this set, and evaluated them with respect to past seismicity data from two Italian earthquake catalogs. We present the results of the tests that measure the consistencies of the forecasts according to past observations. As well as being an evaluation of the time-independent forecasts submitted, this exercise provides insight into a number of important issues in predictability experiments with regard to the specification of the forecasts, the performance of the tests, and the trade-off between robustness of results and experiment duration. We conclude with suggestions for the design of future earthquake predictability experiments.

  8. Evaluation of statistical models for forecast errors from the HBV model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engeland, Kolbjørn; Renard, Benjamin; Steinsland, Ingelin; Kolberg, Sjur

    2010-04-01

    SummaryThree statistical models for the forecast errors for inflow into the Langvatn reservoir in Northern Norway have been constructed and tested according to the agreement between (i) the forecast distribution and the observations and (ii) median values of the forecast distribution and the observations. For the first model observed and forecasted inflows were transformed by the Box-Cox transformation before a first order auto-regressive model was constructed for the forecast errors. The parameters were conditioned on weather classes. In the second model the Normal Quantile Transformation (NQT) was applied on observed and forecasted inflows before a similar first order auto-regressive model was constructed for the forecast errors. For the third model positive and negative errors were modeled separately. The errors were first NQT-transformed before conditioning the mean error values on climate, forecasted inflow and yesterday's error. To test the three models we applied three criterions: we wanted (a) the forecast distribution to be reliable; (b) the forecast intervals to be narrow; (c) the median values of the forecast distribution to be close to the observed values. Models 1 and 2 gave almost identical results. The median values improved the forecast with Nash-Sutcliffe R eff increasing from 0.77 for the original forecast to 0.87 for the corrected forecasts. Models 1 and 2 over-estimated the forecast intervals but gave the narrowest intervals. Their main drawback was that the distributions are less reliable than Model 3. For Model 3 the median values did not fit well since the auto-correlation was not accounted for. Since Model 3 did not benefit from the potential variance reduction that lies in bias estimation and removal it gave on average wider forecasts intervals than the two other models. At the same time Model 3 on average slightly under-estimated the forecast intervals, probably explained by the use of average measures to evaluate the fit.

  9. Evaluating the performance of infectious disease forecasts: A comparison of climate-driven and seasonal dengue forecasts for Mexico

    OpenAIRE

    Johansson, Michael A.; Reich, Nicholas G.; Hota, Aditi; Brownstein, John S.; Santillana, Mauricio

    2016-01-01

    Dengue viruses, which infect millions of people per year worldwide, cause large epidemics that strain healthcare systems. Despite diverse efforts to develop forecasting tools including autoregressive time series, climate-driven statistical, and mechanistic biological models, little work has been done to understand the contribution of different components to improved prediction. We developed a framework to assess and compare dengue forecasts produced from different types of models and evaluate...

  10. ANALYSIS OF FORECASTING METHODS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF EARLY WARNING CONCEPT IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florin POPESCU

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Early warning system (EWS based on a reliable forecasting process has become a critical component of the management of large complex industrial projects in the globalized transnational environment. The purpose of this research is to critically analyze the forecasting methods from the point of view of early warning, choosing those useful for the construction of EWS. This research addresses complementary techniques, using Bayesian Networks, which addresses both uncertainties and causality in project planning and execution, with the goal of generating early warning signals for project managers. Even though Bayesian networks have been widely used in a range of decision-support applications, their application as early warning systems for project management is still new.

  11. THE ACCURACY AND BIAS EVALUATION OF THE USA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FORECASTS. METHODS TO IMPROVE THE FORECASTS ACCURACY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MIHAELA BRATU (SIMIONESCU

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available In this study some alternative forecasts for the unemployment rate of USA made by four institutions (International Monetary Fund (IMF, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, Congressional Budget Office (CBO and Blue Chips (BC are evaluated regarding the accuracy and the biasness. The most accurate predictions on the forecasting horizon 201-2011 were provided by IMF, followed by OECD, CBO and BC.. These results were gotten using U1 Theil’s statistic and a new method that has not been used before in literature in this context. The multi-criteria ranking was applied to make a hierarchy of the institutions regarding the accuracy and five important accuracy measures were taken into account at the same time: mean errors, mean squared error, root mean squared error, U1 and U2 statistics of Theil. The IMF, OECD and CBO predictions are unbiased. The combined forecasts of institutions’ predictions are a suitable strategy to improve the forecasts accuracy of IMF and OECD forecasts when all combination schemes are used, but INV one is the best. The filtered and smoothed original predictions based on Hodrick-Prescott filter, respectively Holt-Winters technique are a good strategy of improving only the BC expectations. The proposed strategies to improve the accuracy do not solve the problem of biasness. The assessment and improvement of forecasts accuracy have an important contribution in growing the quality of decisional process.

  12. Evaluation of Real-Time Convection-Permitting Precipitation Forecasts in China During the 2013-2014 Summer Season

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Kefeng; Xue, Ming; Zhou, Bowen; Zhao, Kun; Sun, Zhengqi; Fu, Peiling; Zheng, Yongguang; Zhang, Xiaoling; Meng, Qingtao

    2018-01-01

    Forecasts at a 4 km convection-permitting resolution over China during the summer season have been produced with the Weather Research and Forecasting model at Nanjing University since 2013. Precipitation forecasts from 2013 to 2014 are evaluated with dense rain gauge observations and compared with operational global model forecasts. Overall, the 4 km forecasts show very good agreement with observations over most parts of China, outperforming global forecasts in terms of spatial distribution, intensity, and diurnal variation. Quantitative evaluations with the Gilbert skill score further confirm the better performance of the 4 km forecasts over global forecasts for heavy precipitation, especially for the thresholds of 100 and 150 mm d-1. Besides bulk characteristics, the representations of some unique features of summer precipitation in China under the influence of the East Asian summer monsoon are further evaluated. These include the northward progression and southward retreat of the main rainband through the summer season, the diurnal variations of precipitation, and the meridional and zonal propagation of precipitation episodes associated with background synoptic flow and the embedded mesoscale convective systems. The 4 km forecast is able to faithfully reproduce most of the features while overprediction of afternoon convection near the southern China coast is found to be a main deficiency that requires further investigations.

  13. Spatial electric load forecasting

    CERN Document Server

    Willis, H Lee

    2002-01-01

    Containing 12 new chapters, this second edition contains offers increased-coverage of weather correction and normalization of forecasts, anticipation of redevelopment, determining the validity of announced developments, and minimizing risk from over- or under-planning. It provides specific examples and detailed explanations of key points to consider for both standard and unusual utility forecasting situations, information on new algorithms and concepts in forecasting, a review of forecasting pitfalls and mistakes, case studies depicting challenging forecast environments, and load models illustrating various types of demand.

  14. Electricity price forecasting in deregulated markets: A review and evaluation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aggarwal, Sanjeev Kumar; Saini, Lalit Mohan; Kumar, Ashwani [Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana (India)

    2009-01-15

    The main methodologies used in electricity price forecasting have been reviewed in this paper. The following price-forecasting techniques have been covered: (i) stochastic time series, (ii) causal models, and (iii) artificial intelligence based models. The quantitative analysis of the work done by various authors has been presented based on (a) time horizon for prediction, (b) input variables, (c) output variables, (d) results, (e) data points used for analysis, (f) preprocessing technique employed, and (g) architecture of the model. The results have been presented in the form of tables for ease of comparison. Classification of various price-influencing factors used by different researchers has been done and put for reference. Application of various models as applied to different electricity markets is also presented for consideration. (author)

  15. Electricity price forecasting in deregulated markets: A review and evaluation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aggarwal, Sanjeev Kumar; Saini, Lalit Mohan; Kumar, Ashwani

    2009-01-01

    The main methodologies used in electricity price forecasting have been reviewed in this paper. The following price-forecasting techniques have been covered: (i) stochastic time series, (ii) causal models, and (iii) artificial intelligence based models. The quantitative analysis of the work done by various authors has been presented based on (a) time horizon for prediction, (b) input variables, (c) output variables, (d) results, (e) data points used for analysis, (f) preprocessing technique employed, and (g) architecture of the model. The results have been presented in the form of tables for ease of comparison. Classification of various price-influencing factors used by different researchers has been done and put for reference. Application of various models as applied to different electricity markets is also presented for consideration. (author)

  16. Application of the nonlinear time series prediction method of genetic algorithm for forecasting surface wind of point station in the South China Sea with scatterometer observations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhong Jian; Dong Gang; Sun Yimei; Zhang Zhaoyang; Wu Yuqin

    2016-01-01

    The present work reports the development of nonlinear time series prediction method of genetic algorithm (GA) with singular spectrum analysis (SSA) for forecasting the surface wind of a point station in the South China Sea (SCS) with scatterometer observations. Before the nonlinear technique GA is used for forecasting the time series of surface wind, the SSA is applied to reduce the noise. The surface wind speed and surface wind components from scatterometer observations at three locations in the SCS have been used to develop and test the technique. The predictions have been compared with persistence forecasts in terms of root mean square error. The predicted surface wind with GA and SSA made up to four days (longer for some point station) in advance have been found to be significantly superior to those made by persistence model. This method can serve as a cost-effective alternate prediction technique for forecasting surface wind of a point station in the SCS basin. (paper)

  17. Development of an Adaptable Display and Diagnostic System for the Evaluation of Tropical Cyclone Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kucera, P. A.; Burek, T.; Halley-Gotway, J.

    2015-12-01

    NCAR's Joint Numerical Testbed Program (JNTP) focuses on the evaluation of experimental forecasts of tropical cyclones (TCs) with the goal of developing new research tools and diagnostic evaluation methods that can be transitioned to operations. Recent activities include the development of new TC forecast verification methods and the development of an adaptable TC display and diagnostic system. The next generation display and diagnostic system is being developed to support evaluation needs of the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) and broader TC research community. The new hurricane display and diagnostic capabilities allow forecasters and research scientists to more deeply examine the performance of operational and experimental models. The system is built upon modern and flexible technology that includes OpenLayers Mapping tools that are platform independent. The forecast track and intensity along with associated observed track information are stored in an efficient MySQL database. The system provides easy-to-use interactive display system, and provides diagnostic tools to examine forecast track stratified by intensity. Consensus forecasts can be computed and displayed interactively. The system is designed to display information for both real-time and for historical TC cyclones. The display configurations are easily adaptable to meet the needs of the end-user preferences. Ongoing enhancements include improving capabilities for stratification and evaluation of historical best tracks, development and implementation of additional methods to stratify and compute consensus hurricane track and intensity forecasts, and improved graphical display tools. The display is also being enhanced to incorporate gridded forecast, satellite, and sea surface temperature fields. The presentation will provide an overview of the display and diagnostic system development and demonstration of the current capabilities.

  18. Evaluation of Maximum a Posteriori Estimation as Data Assimilation Method for Forecasting Infiltration-Inflow Affected Urban Runoff with Radar Rainfall Input

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonas W. Pedersen

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available High quality on-line flow forecasts are useful for real-time operation of urban drainage systems and wastewater treatment plants. This requires computationally efficient models, which are continuously updated with observed data to provide good initial conditions for the forecasts. This paper presents a way of updating conceptual rainfall-runoff models using Maximum a Posteriori estimation to determine the most likely parameter constellation at the current point in time. This is done by combining information from prior parameter distributions and the model goodness of fit over a predefined period of time that precedes the forecast. The method is illustrated for an urban catchment, where flow forecasts of 0–4 h are generated by applying a lumped linear reservoir model with three cascading reservoirs. Radar rainfall observations are used as input to the model. The effects of different prior standard deviations and lengths of the auto-calibration period on the resulting flow forecast performance are evaluated. We were able to demonstrate that, if properly tuned, the method leads to a significant increase in forecasting performance compared to a model without continuous auto-calibration. Delayed responses and erratic behaviour in the parameter variations are, however, observed and the choice of prior distributions and length of auto-calibration period is not straightforward.

  19. Evaluation of Nonparametric Probabilistic Forecasts of Wind Power

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pinson, Pierre; Møller, Jan Kloppenborg; Nielsen, Henrik Aalborg, orlov 31.07.2008

    Predictions of wind power production for horizons up to 48-72 hour ahead comprise a highly valuable input to the methods for the daily management or trading of wind generation. Today, users of wind power predictions are not only provided with point predictions, which are estimates of the most...... likely outcome for each look-ahead time, but also with uncertainty estimates given by probabilistic forecasts. In order to avoid assumptions on the shape of predictive distributions, these probabilistic predictions are produced from nonparametric methods, and then take the form of a single or a set...

  20. Robust forecast comparison

    OpenAIRE

    Jin, Sainan; Corradi, Valentina; Swanson, Norman

    2015-01-01

    Forecast accuracy is typically measured in terms of a given loss function. However, as a consequence of the use of misspecified models in multiple model comparisons, relative forecast rankings are loss function dependent. This paper addresses this issue by using a novel criterion for forecast evaluation which is based on the entire distribution of forecast errors. We introduce the concepts of general-loss (GL) forecast superiority and convex-loss (CL) forecast superiority, and we establish a ...

  1. Evaluation of weather forecast systems for storm surge modeling in the Chesapeake Bay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garzon, Juan L.; Ferreira, Celso M.; Padilla-Hernandez, Roberto

    2018-01-01

    Accurate forecast of sea-level heights in coastal areas depends, among other factors, upon a reliable coupling of a meteorological forecast system to a hydrodynamic and wave system. This study evaluates the predictive skills of the coupled circulation and wind-wave model system (ADCIRC+SWAN) for simulating storm tides in the Chesapeake Bay, forced by six different products: (1) Global Forecast System (GFS), (2) Climate Forecast System (CFS) version 2, (3) North American Mesoscale Forecast System (NAM), (4) Rapid Refresh (RAP), (5) European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and (6) the Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2). This evaluation is based on the hindcasting of four events: Irene (2011), Sandy (2012), Joaquin (2015), and Jonas (2016). By comparing the simulated water levels to observations at 13 monitoring stations, we have found that the ADCIR+SWAN System forced by the following: (1) the HURDAT2-based system exhibited the weakest statistical skills owing to a noteworthy overprediction of the simulated wind speed; (2) the ECMWF, RAP, and NAM products captured the moment of the peak and moderately its magnitude during all storms, with a correlation coefficient ranging between 0.98 and 0.77; (3) the CFS system exhibited the worst averaged root-mean-square difference (excepting HURDAT2); (4) the GFS system (the lowest horizontal resolution product tested) resulted in a clear underprediction of the maximum water elevation. Overall, the simulations forced by NAM and ECMWF systems induced the most accurate results best accuracy to support water level forecasting in the Chesapeake Bay during both tropical and extra-tropical storms.

  2. Statistical Correction of Air Temperature Forecasts for City and Road Weather Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahura, Alexander; Petersen, Claus; Sass, Bent; Gilet, Nicolas

    2014-05-01

    that the CPU time required for the operational procedure is relatively short (less than 15 minutes including a large time spent for interpolation). These also showed that in order to start correction of forecasts there is no need to have a long-term pre-historical data (containing forecasts and observations) and, at least, a couple of weeks will be sufficient when a new observational station is included and added to the forecast point. Note for the road weather application, the operationalization of the statistical correction of the road surface temperature forecasts (for the RWM system daily hourly runs covering forecast length up to 5 hours ahead) for the Danish road network (for about 400 road stations) was also implemented, and it is running in a test mode since Sep 2013. The method can also be applied for correction of the dew point temperature and wind speed (as a part of observations/ forecasts at synoptical stations), where these both meteorological parameters are parts of the proposed system of equations. The evaluation of the method performance for improvement of the wind speed forecasts is planned as well, with considering possibilities for the wind direction improvements (which is more complex due to multi-modal types of such data distribution). The method worked for the entire domain of mainland Denmark (tested for 60 synoptical and 395 road stations), and hence, it can be also applied for any geographical point within this domain, as through interpolation to about 100 cities' locations (for Danish national byvejr forecasts). Moreover, we can assume that the same method can be used in other geographical areas. The evaluation for other domains (with a focus on Greenland and Nordic countries) is planned. In addition, a similar approach might be also tested for statistical correction of concentrations of chemical species, but such approach will require additional elaboration and evaluation.

  3. Tsunami Forecasting in the Atlantic Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knight, W. R.; Whitmore, P.; Sterling, K.; Hale, D. A.; Bahng, B.

    2012-12-01

    The mission of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) is to provide advance tsunami warning and guidance to coastal communities within its Area-of-Responsibility (AOR). Predictive tsunami models, based on the shallow water wave equations, are an important part of the Center's guidance support. An Atlantic-based counterpart to the long-standing forecasting ability in the Pacific known as the Alaska Tsunami Forecast Model (ATFM) is now developed. The Atlantic forecasting method is based on ATFM version 2 which contains advanced capabilities over the original model; including better handling of the dynamic interactions between grids, inundation over dry land, new forecast model products, an optional non-hydrostatic approach, and the ability to pre-compute larger and more finely gridded regions using parallel computational techniques. The wide and nearly continuous Atlantic shelf region presents a challenge for forecast models. Our solution to this problem has been to develop a single unbroken high resolution sub-mesh (currently 30 arc-seconds), trimmed to the shelf break. This allows for edge wave propagation and for kilometer scale bathymetric feature resolution. Terminating the fine mesh at the 2000m isobath keeps the number of grid points manageable while allowing for a coarse (4 minute) mesh to adequately resolve deep water tsunami dynamics. Higher resolution sub-meshes are then included around coastal forecast points of interest. The WCATWC Atlantic AOR includes eastern U.S. and Canada, the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are in very close proximity to well-known tsunami sources. Because travel times are under an hour and response must be immediate, our focus is on pre-computing many tsunami source "scenarios" and compiling those results into a database accessible and calibrated with observations during an event. Seismic source evaluation determines the order of model pre

  4. A Novel Nonlinear Combined Forecasting System for Short-Term Load Forecasting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chengshi Tian

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Short-term load forecasting plays an indispensable role in electric power systems, which is not only an extremely challenging task but also a concerning issue for all society due to complex nonlinearity characteristics. However, most previous combined forecasting models were based on optimizing weight coefficients to develop a linear combined forecasting model, while ignoring that the linear combined model only considers the contribution of the linear terms to improving the model’s performance, which will lead to poor forecasting results because of the significance of the neglected and potential nonlinear terms. In this paper, a novel nonlinear combined forecasting system, which consists of three modules (improved data pre-processing module, forecasting module and the evaluation module is developed for short-term load forecasting. Different from the simple data pre-processing of most previous studies, the improved data pre-processing module based on longitudinal data selection is successfully developed in this system, which further improves the effectiveness of data pre-processing and then enhances the final forecasting performance. Furthermore, the modified support vector machine is developed to integrate all the individual predictors and obtain the final prediction, which successfully overcomes the upper drawbacks of the linear combined model. Moreover, the evaluation module is incorporated to perform a scientific evaluation for the developed system. The half-hourly electrical load data from New South Wales are employed to verify the effectiveness of the developed forecasting system, and the results reveal that the developed nonlinear forecasting system can be employed in the dispatching and planning for smart grids.

  5. Evaluation of the NCEP CFSv2 45-day Forecasts for Predictability of Intraseasonal Tropical Storm Activities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schemm, J. E.; Long, L.; Baxter, S.

    2013-12-01

    Evaluation of the NCEP CFSv2 45-day Forecasts for Predictability of Intraseasonal Tropical Storm Activities Jae-Kyung E. Schemm, Lindsey Long and Stephen Baxter Climate Prediction Center, NCEP/NWS/NOAA Predictability of intraseasonal tropical storm (TS) activities is assessed using the 1999-2010 CFSv2 hindcast suite. Weekly TS activities in the CFSv2 45-day forecasts were determined using the TS detection and tracking method devised by Carmago and Zebiak (2002). The forecast periods are divided into weekly intervals for Week 1 through Week 6, and also the 30-day mean. The TS activities in those intervals are compared to the observed activities based on the NHC HURDAT and JTWC Best Track datasets. The CFSv2 45-day hindcast suite is made of forecast runs initialized at 00, 06, 12 and 18Z every day during the 1999 - 2010 period. For predictability evaluation, forecast TS activities are analyzed based on 20-member ensemble forecasts comprised of 45-day runs made during the most recent 5 days prior to the verification period. The forecast TS activities are evaluated in terms of the number of storms, genesis locations and storm tracks during the weekly periods. The CFSv2 forecasts are shown to have a fair level of skill in predicting the number of storms over the Atlantic Basin with the temporal correlation scores ranging from 0.73 for Week 1 forecasts to 0.63 for Week 6, and the average RMS errors ranging from 0.86 to 1.07 during the 1999-2010 hurricane season. Also, the forecast track density distribution and false alarm statistics are compiled using the hindcast analyses. In real-time applications of the intraseasonal TS activity forecasts, the climatological TS forecast statistics will be used to make the model bias corrections in terms of the storm counts, track distribution and removal of false alarms. An operational implementation of the weekly TS activity prediction is planned for early 2014 to provide an objective input for the CPC's Global Tropical Hazards

  6. Forecasting longitudinal changes in oropharyngeal tumor morphology throughout the course of head and neck radiation therapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yock, Adam D.; Kudchadker, Rajat J.; Rao, Arvind; Dong, Lei; Beadle, Beth M.; Garden, Adam S.; Court, Laurence E.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To create models that forecast longitudinal trends in changing tumor morphology and to evaluate and compare their predictive potential throughout the course of radiation therapy. Methods: Two morphology feature vectors were used to describe 35 gross tumor volumes (GTVs) throughout the course of intensity-modulated radiation therapy for oropharyngeal tumors. The feature vectors comprised the coordinates of the GTV centroids and a description of GTV shape using either interlandmark distances or a spherical harmonic decomposition of these distances. The change in the morphology feature vector observed at 33 time points throughout the course of treatment was described using static, linear, and mean models. Models were adjusted at 0, 1, 2, 3, or 5 different time points (adjustment points) to improve prediction accuracy. The potential of these models to forecast GTV morphology was evaluated using leave-one-out cross-validation, and the accuracy of the models was compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results: Adding a single adjustment point to the static model without any adjustment points decreased the median error in forecasting the position of GTV surface landmarks by the largest amount (1.2 mm). Additional adjustment points further decreased the forecast error by about 0.4 mm each. Selection of the linear model decreased the forecast error for both the distance-based and spherical harmonic morphology descriptors (0.2 mm), while the mean model decreased the forecast error for the distance-based descriptor only (0.2 mm). The magnitude and statistical significance of these improvements decreased with each additional adjustment point, and the effect from model selection was not as large as that from adding the initial points. Conclusions: The authors present models that anticipate longitudinal changes in tumor morphology using various models and model adjustment schemes. The accuracy of these models depended on their form, and the utility of these models

  7. Probabilistic Forecasts of Solar Irradiance by Stochastic Differential Equations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Iversen, Jan Emil Banning; Morales González, Juan Miguel; Møller, Jan Kloppenborg

    2014-01-01

    approach allows for characterizing both the interdependence structure of prediction errors of short-term solar irradiance and their predictive distribution. Three different stochastic differential equation models are first fitted to a training data set and subsequently evaluated on a one-year test set...... included in probabilistic forecasts may be paramount for decision makers to efficiently make use of this uncertain and variable generation. In this paper, a stochastic differential equation framework for modeling the uncertainty associated with the solar irradiance point forecast is proposed. This modeling...

  8. Evaluation of official tropical cyclone landfall forecast issued by India ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Here an attempt is made to evaluate the TC landfall forecast issued by IMD during. 2003–2013 (11 years) by ... cast performance and the relative performance of individual .... Environmental Prediction (NCEP) GFS and some ensemble means ...

  9. Results of verification and investigation of wind velocity field forecast. Verification of wind velocity field forecast model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ogawa, Takeshi; Kayano, Mitsunaga; Kikuchi, Hideo; Abe, Takeo; Saga, Kyoji

    1995-01-01

    In Environmental Radioactivity Research Institute, the verification and investigation of the wind velocity field forecast model 'EXPRESS-1' have been carried out since 1991. In fiscal year 1994, as the general analysis, the validity of weather observation data, the local features of wind field, and the validity of the positions of monitoring stations were investigated. The EXPRESS which adopted 500 m mesh so far was improved to 250 m mesh, and the heightening of forecast accuracy was examined, and the comparison with another wind velocity field forecast model 'SPEEDI' was carried out. As the results, there are the places where the correlation with other points of measurement is high and low, and it was found that for the forecast of wind velocity field, by excluding the data of the points with low correlation or installing simplified observation stations to take their data in, the forecast accuracy is improved. The outline of the investigation, the general analysis of weather observation data and the improvements of wind velocity field forecast model and forecast accuracy are reported. (K.I.)

  10. Probabilistic forecasting for extreme NO2 pollution episodes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aznarte, José L.

    2017-01-01

    In this study, we investigate the convenience of quantile regression to predict extreme concentrations of NO 2 . Contrarily to the usual point-forecasting, where a single value is forecast for each horizon, probabilistic forecasting through quantile regression allows for the prediction of the full probability distribution, which in turn allows to build models specifically fit for the tails of this distribution. Using data from the city of Madrid, including NO 2 concentrations as well as meteorological measures, we build models that predict extreme NO 2 concentrations, outperforming point-forecasting alternatives, and we prove that the predictions are accurate, reliable and sharp. Besides, we study the relative importance of the independent variables involved, and show how the important variables for the median quantile are different than those important for the upper quantiles. Furthermore, we present a method to compute the probability of exceedance of thresholds, which is a simple and comprehensible manner to present probabilistic forecasts maximizing their usefulness. - Highlights: • A new probabilistic forecasting system is presented to predict NO 2 concentrations. • While predicting the full distribution, it also outperforms other point-forecasting models. • Forecasts show good properties and peak concentrations are properly predicted. • It forecasts the probability of exceedance of thresholds, key to decision makers. • Relative forecasting importance of the variables is obtained as a by-product.

  11. Stochastic rainfall-runoff forecasting: parameter estimation, multi-step prediction, and evaluation of overflow risk

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Löwe, Roland; Mikkelsen, Peter Steen; Madsen, Henrik

    2014-01-01

    Probabilistic runoff forecasts generated by stochastic greybox models can be notably useful for the improvement of the decision-making process in real-time control setups for urban drainage systems because the prediction risk relationships in these systems are often highly nonlinear. To date...... the identification of models for cases with noisy in-sewer observations. For the prediction of the overflow risk, no improvement was demonstrated through the application of stochastic forecasts instead of point predictions, although this result is thought to be caused by the notably simplified setup used...

  12. Short-term wind power forecasting: probabilistic and space-time aspects

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tastu, Julija

    work deals with the proposal and evaluation of new mathematical models and forecasting methods for short-term wind power forecasting, accounting for space-time dynamics based on geographically distributed information. Different forms of power predictions are considered, starting from traditional point...... into the corresponding models are analysed. As a final step, emphasis is placed on generating space-time trajectories: this calls for the prediction of joint multivariate predictive densities describing wind power generation at a number of distributed locations and for a number of successive lead times. In addition......Optimal integration of wind energy into power systems calls for high quality wind power predictions. State-of-the-art forecasting systems typically provide forecasts for every location individually, without taking into account information coming from the neighbouring territories. It is however...

  13. Evaluating probabilistic dengue risk forecasts from a prototype early warning system for Brazil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lowe, Rachel; Coelho, Caio AS; Barcellos, Christovam; Carvalho, Marilia Sá; Catão, Rafael De Castro; Coelho, Giovanini E; Ramalho, Walter Massa; Bailey, Trevor C; Stephenson, David B; Rodó, Xavier

    2016-01-01

    Recently, a prototype dengue early warning system was developed to produce probabilistic forecasts of dengue risk three months ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Here, we evaluate the categorical dengue forecasts across all microregions in Brazil, using dengue cases reported in June 2014 to validate the model. We also compare the forecast model framework to a null model, based on seasonal averages of previously observed dengue incidence. When considering the ability of the two models to predict high dengue risk across Brazil, the forecast model produced more hits and fewer missed events than the null model, with a hit rate of 57% for the forecast model compared to 33% for the null model. This early warning model framework may be useful to public health services, not only ahead of mass gatherings, but also before the peak dengue season each year, to control potentially explosive dengue epidemics. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11285.001 PMID:26910315

  14. The SPoRT-WRF: Evaluating the Impact of NASA Datasets on Convective Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zavodsky, Bradley; Kozlowski, Danielle; Case, Jonathan; Molthan, Andrew

    2012-01-01

    Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) seeks to improve short-term, regional weather forecasts using unique NASA products and capabilities SPoRT has developed a unique, real-time configuration of the NASA Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)WRF (ARW) that integrates all SPoRT modeling research data: (1) 2-km SPoRT Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Composite, (2) 3-km LIS with 1-km Greenness Vegetation Fraction (GVFs) (3) 45-km AIRS retrieved profiles. Transitioned this real-time forecast to NOAA's Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) as deterministic model at Experimental Forecast Program (EFP). Feedback from forecasters/participants and internal evaluation of SPoRT-WRF shows a cool, dry bias that appears to suppress convection likely related to methodology for assimilation of AIRS profiles Version 2 of the SPoRT-WRF will premier at the 2012 EFP and include NASA physics, cycling data assimilation methodology, better coverage of precipitation forcing, and new GVFs

  15. A global flash flood forecasting system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baugh, Calum; Pappenberger, Florian; Wetterhall, Fredrik; Hewson, Tim; Zsoter, Ervin

    2016-04-01

    The sudden and devastating nature of flash flood events means it is imperative to provide early warnings such as those derived from Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) forecasts. Currently such systems exist on basin, national and continental scales in Europe, North America and Australia but rely on high resolution NWP forecasts or rainfall-radar nowcasting, neither of which have global coverage. To produce global flash flood forecasts this work investigates the possibility of using forecasts from a global NWP system. In particular we: (i) discuss how global NWP can be used for flash flood forecasting and discuss strengths and weaknesses; (ii) demonstrate how a robust evaluation can be performed given the rarity of the event; (iii) highlight the challenges and opportunities in communicating flash flood uncertainty to decision makers; and (iv) explore future developments which would significantly improve global flash flood forecasting. The proposed forecast system uses ensemble surface runoff forecasts from the ECMWF H-TESSEL land surface scheme. A flash flood index is generated using the ERIC (Enhanced Runoff Index based on Climatology) methodology [Raynaud et al., 2014]. This global methodology is applied to a series of flash floods across southern Europe. Results from the system are compared against warnings produced using the higher resolution COSMO-LEPS limited area model. The global system is evaluated by comparing forecasted warning locations against a flash flood database of media reports created in partnership with floodlist.com. To deal with the lack of objectivity in media reports we carefully assess the suitability of different skill scores and apply spatial uncertainty thresholds to the observations. To communicate the uncertainties of the flash flood system output we experiment with a dynamic region-growing algorithm. This automatically clusters regions of similar return period exceedence probabilities, thus presenting the at-risk areas at a spatial

  16. Evaluation of official tropical cyclone track forecast over north Indian ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    algorithms, techniques and observing systems;. • Evaluation of ... available forecast techniques, perhaps including stratification into ... an important factor in the overall decision pro- cess relative to ...... infrared and water vapour based imageries and products. ... Meteorology, IMD for his support and encourage- ment to carry ...

  17. Evaluation of streamflow forecast for the National Water Model of U.S. National Weather Service

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rafieeinasab, A.; McCreight, J. L.; Dugger, A. L.; Gochis, D.; Karsten, L. R.; Zhang, Y.; Cosgrove, B.; Liu, Y.

    2016-12-01

    The National Water Model (NWM), an implementation of the community WRF-Hydro modeling system, is an operational hydrologic forecasting model for the contiguous United States. The model forecasts distributed hydrologic states and fluxes, including soil moisture, snowpack, ET, and ponded water. In particular, the NWM provides streamflow forecasts at more than 2.7 million river reaches for three forecast ranges: short (15 hr), medium (10 days), and long (30 days). In this study, we verify short and medium range streamflow forecasts in the context of the verification of their respective quantitative precipitation forecasts/forcing (QPF), the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) and the Global Forecast System (GFS). The streamflow evaluation is performed for summer of 2016 at more than 6,000 USGS gauges. Both individual forecasts and forecast lead times are examined. Selected case studies of extreme events aim to provide insight into the quality of the NWM streamflow forecasts. A goal of this comparison is to address how much streamflow bias originates from precipitation forcing bias. To this end, precipitation verification is performed over the contributing areas above (and between assimilated) USGS gauge locations. Precipitation verification is based on the aggregated, blended StageIV/StageII data as the "reference truth". We summarize the skill of the streamflow forecasts, their skill relative to the QPF, and make recommendations for improving NWM forecast skill.

  18. Against all odds -- Probabilistic forecasts and decision making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liechti, Katharina; Zappa, Massimiliano

    2015-04-01

    In the city of Zurich (Switzerland) the setting is such that the damage potential due to flooding of the river Sihl is estimated to about 5 billion US dollars. The flood forecasting system that is used by the administration for decision making runs continuously since 2007. It has a time horizon of max. five days and operates at hourly time steps. The flood forecasting system includes three different model chains. Two of those are run by the deterministic NWP models COSMO-2 and COSMO-7 and one is driven by the probabilistic NWP COSMO-Leps. The model chains are consistent since February 2010, so five full years are available for the evaluation for the system. The system was evaluated continuously and is a very nice example to present the added value that lies in probabilistic forecasts. The forecasts are available on an online-platform to the decision makers. Several graphical representations of the forecasts and forecast-history are available to support decision making and to rate the current situation. The communication between forecasters and decision-makers is quite close. To put it short, an ideal situation. However, an event or better put a non-event in summer 2014 showed that the knowledge about the general superiority of probabilistic forecasts doesn't necessarily mean that the decisions taken in a specific situation will be based on that probabilistic forecast. Some years of experience allow gaining confidence in the system, both for the forecasters and for the decision-makers. Even if from the theoretical point of view the handling during crisis situation is well designed, a first event demonstrated that the dialog with the decision-makers still lacks of exercise during such situations. We argue, that a false alarm is a needed experience to consolidate real-time emergency procedures relying on ensemble predictions. A missed event would probably also fit, but, in our case, we are very happy not to report about this option.

  19. Ex-post evaluations of demand forecast accuracy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nicolaisen, Morten Skou; Driscoll, Patrick Arthur

    2014-01-01

    Travel demand forecasts play a crucial role in the preparation of decision support to policy makers in the field of transport planning. The results feed directly into impact appraisals such as cost benefit analyses and environmental impact assessments, which are mandatory for large public works...... projects in many countries. Over the last couple of decades there has been an increasing attention to the lack of demand forecast accuracy, but since data availability for comprehensive ex- post appraisals is problematic, such studies are still relatively rare. The present paper presents a review...... of the largest ex-post studies of demand forecast accuracy for transport infrastructure projects. The focus is twofold; to provide an overview of observed levels of demand forecast inaccuracy and to explore the primary explanations offered for the observed inaccuracy. Inaccuracy in the form of both bias...

  20. Short-Term Load Forecasting-Based Automatic Distribution Network Reconfiguration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jiang, Huaiguang [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Ding, Fei [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Zhang, Yingchen [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2017-08-23

    In a traditional dynamic network reconfiguration study, the optimal topology is determined at every scheduled time point by using the real load data measured at that time. The development of the load forecasting technique can provide an accurate prediction of the load power that will happen in a future time and provide more information about load changes. With the inclusion of load forecasting, the optimal topology can be determined based on the predicted load conditions during a longer time period instead of using a snapshot of the load at the time when the reconfiguration happens; thus, the distribution system operator can use this information to better operate the system reconfiguration and achieve optimal solutions. This paper proposes a short-term load forecasting approach to automatically reconfigure distribution systems in a dynamic and pre-event manner. Specifically, a short-term and high-resolution distribution system load forecasting approach is proposed with a forecaster based on support vector regression and parallel parameters optimization. The network reconfiguration problem is solved by using the forecasted load continuously to determine the optimal network topology with the minimum amount of loss at the future time. The simulation results validate and evaluate the proposed approach.

  1. Multiple "buy buttons" in the brain: Forecasting chocolate sales at point-of-sale based on functional brain activation using fMRI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kühn, Simone; Strelow, Enrique; Gallinat, Jürgen

    2016-08-01

    We set out to forecast consumer behaviour in a supermarket based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Data was collected while participants viewed six chocolate bar communications and product pictures before and after each communication. Then self-reports liking judgement were collected. fMRI data was extracted from a priori selected brain regions: nucleus accumbens, medial orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex assumed to contribute positively and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and insula were hypothesized to contribute negatively to sales. The resulting values were rank ordered. After our fMRI-based forecast an instore test was conducted in a supermarket on n=63.617 shoppers. Changes in sales were best forecasted by fMRI signal during communication viewing, second best by a comparison of brain signal during product viewing before and after communication and least by explicit liking judgements. The results demonstrate the feasibility of applying neuroimaging methods in a relatively small sample to correctly forecast sales changes at point-of-sale. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  2. The strategy of professional forecasting

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ottaviani, Marco; Sørensen, Peter Norman

    2006-01-01

    We develop and compare two theories of professional forecasters’ strategic behavior. The first theory, reputational cheap talk, posits that forecasters endeavor to convince the market that they are well informed. The market evaluates their forecasting talent on the basis of the forecasts...... and the realized state. If the market expects forecasters to report their posterior expectations honestly, then forecasts are shaded toward the prior mean. With correct market expectations, equilibrium forecasts are imprecise but not shaded. The second theory posits that forecasters compete in a forecasting...... contest with pre-specified rules. In a winner-take-all contest, equilibrium forecasts are excessively differentiated...

  3. Evaluation of CFSV2 Forecast Skill for Indian Summer Monsoon Sub-Seasonal Characteristics

    Science.gov (United States)

    S, S. A.; Ghosh, S.

    2015-12-01

    Prediction of sub seasonal monsoon characteristics of Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) is highly crucial for agricultural planning and water resource management. The Climate forecast System version 2 (CFS V2), the state of the art coupled climate model developed by NCEP, is currently being employed for the seasonal and extended range forecasts of ISM. Even though CFSV2 is a fully coupled ocean- atmosphere- land model with advanced physics, increased resolution and refined initialisation, its ISM forecasts, in terms of seasonal mean and variability needs improvement. Numerous works have been done for verifying the CFSV2 forecasts in terms of the seasonal mean, its mean and variability, active and break spells, and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) - monsoon interactions. Most of these works are based on either rain fall strength or rainfall based indices. Here we evaluate the skill of CFS v2 model in forecasting the various sub seasonal features of ISM, viz., the onset and withdrawal days of monsoon that are determined using circulation based indices, the Monsoon Intra Seasonal Oscillations (MISO), and Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures. The MISO index, we use here, is based on zonal wind at 850 hPa and Outgoing Long wave Radiation (OLR) anomalies. With this work, we aim at assessing the skill of the model in simulating the large scale circulation patterns and their variabilities within the monsoon season. Variabilities in these large scale circulation patterns are primarily responsible for the variabilities in the seasonal monsoon strength and its temporal distribution across the season. We find that the model can better forecast the large scale circulation and than the actual precipitation. Hence we suggest that seasonal rainfall forecasts can be improved by the statistical downscaling of CFSV2 forecasts by incorporating the established relationships between the well forecasted large scale variables and monsoon precipitation.

  4. The effects of forecast errors on the merchandising of wind power

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roon, Serafin von

    2012-01-01

    A permanent balance between consumption and generation is essential for a stable supply of electricity. In order to ensure this balance, all relevant load data have to be announced for the following day. Consequently, a day-ahead forecast of the wind power generation is required, which also forms the basis for the sale of the wind power at the wholesale market. The main subject of the study is the short-term power supply, which compensates errors in wind power forecasting for balancing the wind power forecast errors at short notice. These forecast errors effects the revenues and the expenses by selling and buying power in the day-ahead, intraday and balance energy market. These price effects resulting from the forecast errors are derived from an empirical analysis. In a scenario for the year 2020 the potential of conventional power plants to supply power at short notice is evaluated from a technical and economic point of view by a time series analysis and a unit commitment simulation.

  5. Power plant asset market evaluations: Forecasting the costs of power production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lefton, S A; Grunsrud, G P [Aptech Engineering Services, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (United States)

    1999-12-31

    This presentation discusses the process of evaluating and valuing power plants for sale. It describes a method to forecast the future costs at a power plant using a portion of the past fixed costs, variable energy costs, and most importantly the variable cycling-related wear-and-tear costs. The presentation then discusses how to best determine market share, expected revenues, and then to forecast plant future costs based on future expected unit cycling operations. The presentation concludes with a section on recommendations to power plant buyers or sellers on how to manage the power plant asset and how to increase its market value. (orig.) 4 refs.

  6. Power plant asset market evaluations: Forecasting the costs of power production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lefton, S.A.; Grunsrud, G.P. [Aptech Engineering Services, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (United States)

    1998-12-31

    This presentation discusses the process of evaluating and valuing power plants for sale. It describes a method to forecast the future costs at a power plant using a portion of the past fixed costs, variable energy costs, and most importantly the variable cycling-related wear-and-tear costs. The presentation then discusses how to best determine market share, expected revenues, and then to forecast plant future costs based on future expected unit cycling operations. The presentation concludes with a section on recommendations to power plant buyers or sellers on how to manage the power plant asset and how to increase its market value. (orig.) 4 refs.

  7. Power plant asset market evaluations: Forecasting the costs of power production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lefton, S.A.; Grunsrud, G.P.

    1998-01-01

    This presentation discusses the process of evaluating and valuing power plants for sale. It describes a method to forecast the future costs at a power plant using a portion of the past fixed costs, variable energy costs, and most importantly the variable cycling-related wear-and-tear costs. The presentation then discusses how to best determine market share, expected revenues, and then to forecast plant future costs based on future expected unit cycling operations. The presentation concludes with a section on recommendations to power plant buyers or sellers on how to manage the power plant asset and how to increase its market value. (orig.) 4 refs

  8. Flood Forecasting Based on TIGGE Precipitation Ensemble Forecast

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jinyin Ye

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available TIGGE (THORPEX International Grand Global Ensemble was a major part of the THORPEX (Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment. It integrates ensemble precipitation products from all the major forecast centers in the world and provides systematic evaluation on the multimodel ensemble prediction system. Development of meteorologic-hydrologic coupled flood forecasting model and early warning model based on the TIGGE precipitation ensemble forecast can provide flood probability forecast, extend the lead time of the flood forecast, and gain more time for decision-makers to make the right decision. In this study, precipitation ensemble forecast products from ECMWF, NCEP, and CMA are used to drive distributed hydrologic model TOPX. We focus on Yi River catchment and aim to build a flood forecast and early warning system. The results show that the meteorologic-hydrologic coupled model can satisfactorily predict the flow-process of four flood events. The predicted occurrence time of peak discharges is close to the observations. However, the magnitude of the peak discharges is significantly different due to various performances of the ensemble prediction systems. The coupled forecasting model can accurately predict occurrence of the peak time and the corresponding risk probability of peak discharge based on the probability distribution of peak time and flood warning, which can provide users a strong theoretical foundation and valuable information as a promising new approach.

  9. Results from Evaluations of Gridded CrIS/ATMS Visualization for Operational Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stevens, E.; Zavodsky, B.; Dostalek, J.; Berndt, E.; Hoese, D.; White, K.; Bowlan, M.; Gambacorta, A.; Wheeler, A.; Haisley, C.; Smith, N.

    2017-12-01

    For forecast challenges which require diagnosis of the three-dimensional atmosphere, current observations, such as radiosondes, may not offer enough information. Satellite data can help fill the spatial and temporal gaps between soundings. In particular, temperature and moisture retrievals from the NOAA-Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS), which combines infrared soundings from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) with the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) to retrieve profiles of temperature and moisture. NUCAPS retrievals are available in a wide swath with approximately 45-km spatial resolution at nadir and a local Equator crossing time of 1:30 A.M./P.M. enabling three-dimensional observations at asynoptic times. This abstract focuses on evaluation of a new visualization for NUCAPS within the operational National Weather Service Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) decision support system that allows these data to be viewed in gridded horizontal maps or vertical cross sections. Two testbed evaluations have occurred in 2017: a Cold Air Aloft (CAA) evaluation at the Alaska Center Weather Service Unit and a Convective Potential evaluation at the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed. For CAA, at high latitudes during the winter months, the air at altitudes used by passenger and cargo aircraft can reach temperatures cold enough (-65°C) to begin to freeze jet fuel, and Gridded NUCAPS visualization was shown to help fill in the spatial and temporal gaps in data-sparse areas across the Alaskan airspace by identifying the 3D spatial extent of cold air features. For convective potential, understanding the vertical distribution of temperature and moisture is also very important for forecasting the potential for convection related to severe weather such as lightning, large hail, and tornadoes. The Gridded NUCAPS visualization was shown to aid forecasters in understanding temperature and moisture characteristics at critical levels

  10. Bayesian analyses of seasonal runoff forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krzysztofowicz, R.; Reese, S.

    1991-12-01

    Forecasts of seasonal snowmelt runoff volume provide indispensable information for rational decision making by water project operators, irrigation district managers, and farmers in the western United States. Bayesian statistical models and communication frames have been researched in order to enhance the forecast information disseminated to the users, and to characterize forecast skill from the decision maker's point of view. Four products are presented: (i) a Bayesian Processor of Forecasts, which provides a statistical filter for calibrating the forecasts, and a procedure for estimating the posterior probability distribution of the seasonal runoff; (ii) the Bayesian Correlation Score, a new measure of forecast skill, which is related monotonically to the ex ante economic value of forecasts for decision making; (iii) a statistical predictor of monthly cumulative runoffs within the snowmelt season, conditional on the total seasonal runoff forecast; and (iv) a framing of the forecast message that conveys the uncertainty associated with the forecast estimates to the users. All analyses are illustrated with numerical examples of forecasts for six gauging stations from the period 1971 1988.

  11. Development and testing of an innovative short-term large wind ramp forecasting system

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zack, J.W. [AWS Truepower LLC, Troy, NY (United States)

    2010-07-01

    This PowerPoint presentation discussed a ramp forecasting tool designed for use in a region of Texas with a high wind-generating capacity. Large system-wide ramps frequently occur in the region, and curtailments are common due to transmission constraints. The average hourly load of the power system is 32,101 MW. Wind power capacity in the region is 9382 MW. However, actual production rarely exceeds 6500 MW due to the curtailments. The short-term ramp forecasting tool was designed to aid in grid management decisions for the 0-6 hour ahead period as well as to address issues related to wind farm time series data and the lack of situational awareness information. The tool provided rapid updates for grid point wind analysis with feature detection and tracking algorithms and a rapid update cycle model. The tool also featured a suite of web-based applications that included deterministic ramp even forecasts, power production time series forecasts, and situational awareness products that are updated every 15 minutes. A performance evaluation study of the tool was provided. tabs., figs.

  12. Short-Term Load Forecasting Based Automatic Distribution Network Reconfiguration: Preprint

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jiang, Huaiguang [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Ding, Fei [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Zhang, Yingchen [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Jiang, Huaiguang [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Ding, Fei [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Zhang, Yingchen [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2017-07-26

    In the traditional dynamic network reconfiguration study, the optimal topology is determined at every scheduled time point by using the real load data measured at that time. The development of load forecasting technique can provide accurate prediction of load power that will happen in future time and provide more information about load changes. With the inclusion of load forecasting, the optimal topology can be determined based on the predicted load conditions during the longer time period instead of using the snapshot of load at the time when the reconfiguration happens, and thus it can provide information to the distribution system operator (DSO) to better operate the system reconfiguration to achieve optimal solutions. Thus, this paper proposes a short-term load forecasting based approach for automatically reconfiguring distribution systems in a dynamic and pre-event manner. Specifically, a short-term and high-resolution distribution system load forecasting approach is proposed with support vector regression (SVR) based forecaster and parallel parameters optimization. And the network reconfiguration problem is solved by using the forecasted load continuously to determine the optimal network topology with the minimum loss at the future time. The simulation results validate and evaluate the proposed approach.

  13. Probabilistic forecasts of wind power generation accounting for geographically dispersed information

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tastu, Julija; Pinson, Pierre; Trombe, Pierre-Julien

    2014-01-01

    be optimized by accounting for spatio-temporal effects that are so far merely considered. The way these effects may be included in relevant models is described for the case of both parametric and nonparametric approaches to generating probabilistic forecasts. The resulting predictions are evaluated on the real...... of the first order moments of predictive densities. The best performing approach, based on adaptive quantile regression, using spatially corrected point forecasts as input, consistently outperforms the state-of-theartbenchmark based on local information only, by 1.5%-4.6%, depending upon the lead time....

  14. Using a Software Tool in Forecasting: a Case Study of Sales Forecasting Taking into Account Data Uncertainty

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fabianová, Jana; Kačmáry, Peter; Molnár, Vieroslav; Michalik, Peter

    2016-10-01

    Forecasting is one of the logistics activities and a sales forecast is the starting point for the elaboration of business plans. Forecast accuracy affects the business outcomes and ultimately may significantly affect the economic stability of the company. The accuracy of the prediction depends on the suitability of the use of forecasting methods, experience, quality of input data, time period and other factors. The input data are usually not deterministic but they are often of random nature. They are affected by uncertainties of the market environment, and many other factors. Taking into account the input data uncertainty, the forecast error can by reduced. This article deals with the use of the software tool for incorporating data uncertainty into forecasting. Proposals are presented of a forecasting approach and simulation of the impact of uncertain input parameters to the target forecasted value by this case study model. The statistical analysis and risk analysis of the forecast results is carried out including sensitivity analysis and variables impact analysis.

  15. Probabilistic energy forecasting: Global Energy Forecasting Competition 2014 and beyond

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hong, Tao; Pinson, Pierre; Fan, Shu

    2016-01-01

    The energy industry has been going through a significant modernization process over the last decade. Its infrastructure is being upgraded rapidly. The supply, demand and prices are becoming more volatile and less predictable than ever before. Even its business model is being challenged fundamenta......The energy industry has been going through a significant modernization process over the last decade. Its infrastructure is being upgraded rapidly. The supply, demand and prices are becoming more volatile and less predictable than ever before. Even its business model is being challenged...... fundamentally. In this competitive and dynamic environment, many decision-making processes rely on probabilistic forecasts to quantify the uncertain future. Although most of the papers in the energy forecasting literature focus on point or singlevalued forecasts, the research interest in probabilistic energy...

  16. How accurate are forecasts of costs of energy? A methodological contribution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Siddons, Craig; Allan, Grant; McIntyre, Stuart

    2015-01-01

    Forecasts of the cost of energy are typically presented as point estimates; however forecasts are seldom accurate, which makes it important to understand the uncertainty around these point estimates. The scale of the differences between forecasts and outturns (i.e. contemporary estimates) of costs may have important implications for government decisions on the appropriate form (and level) of support, modelling energy scenarios or industry investment appraisal. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the accuracy of cost forecasts. We apply this to levelised costs of energy for different generation technologies due to the availability of comparable forecasts and contemporary estimates, however the same methodology could be applied to the components of levelised costs, such as capital costs. The estimated “forecast errors” capture the accuracy of previous forecasts and can provide objective bounds to the range around current forecasts for such costs. The results from applying this method are illustrated using publicly available data for on- and off-shore wind, Nuclear and CCGT technologies, revealing the possible scale of “forecast errors” for these technologies. - Highlights: • A methodology to assess the accuracy of forecasts of costs of energy is outlined. • Method applied to illustrative data for four electricity generation technologies. • Results give an objective basis for sensitivity analysis around point estimates.

  17. Forecasting and evaluations of crude oil processing and oil derivatives consumption in Republic of Macedonia up to 2000 year

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Janevski, Risto

    1998-01-01

    Elaboration of various analysis in an energetic field is a quite usual, but inevitable action, procedure and investigation. Also, in a field of crude oil processing and oil derivatives consumption these analyses are a base for making a various range of forecasting and evaluations. How many of these forecasting and evaluations will be credible it depends mostly of diligent, precise and accurate data and experiences in the previous years. This part refers to forecasting and evaluations of crude oil processing and oil derivatives consumption in a short period up to 2000 year in Republic of Macedonia. (Author)

  18. Development and evaluation of the operational Air-Quality forecast model for Austria ALARO-CAMx

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flandorfer, Claudia; Hirtl, Marcus; Krüger, Bernd C.

    2014-05-01

    The Air-Quality model for Austria (AQA) is operated at ZAMG in cooperation with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna by order of the regional governments since 2005. The modeling system is currently a combination of the meteorological model ALARO and the photochemical dispersion model CAMx. Two modeling domains are used with the highest resolution (5 km) in the alpine region. Various extensions with external data sources have been conducted in the past to improve the daily forecasts of the model. Since 2013 O3- and PM10-observations from the Austrian measurement network have been assimilated daily using optimum interpolation. Dynamic chemical boundary conditions are obtained from Air-Quality forecasts provided by ECMWF in the frame of MACC-II. Additionally the latest available high resolved emission inventories for Austria are combined with TNO and EMEP data. The biogenic emissions are provided by the SMOKE model. ZAMG provides daily forecasts of O3, PM10 and NO2 to the regional governments of Austria. The evaluation of these forecasts is done for the summer 2013 with the main focus on the forecasts of ozone. The measurements of the Air-Quality stations are compared with the punctual forecasts at the sites of the station and with the area forecasts for every province of Austria. In the summer of 2013, two heat waves occurred. The first very short heat wave was in June 2013. During this period one exceedance of the alert threshold value for ozone occurred. The second heat wave took place from the end of July to the mid of August. Due to very high temperatures (new temperature record for Austria measured in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg with 40.5°C) and long dryness episodes the information threshold value has been exceeded several times in the eastern regions of Austria. The alert threshold value has been exceeded one time in this period. For the evaluation, the results for the second heat wave episode in Eastern Austria will be discussed

  19. Evaluation of quantitative precipitation forecasts by TIGGE ensembles for south China during the presummer rainy season

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Ling; Luo, Yali

    2017-08-01

    Based on The Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) data set, this study evaluates the ability of global ensemble prediction systems (EPSs) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Korean Meteorological Administration, and China Meteorological Administration (CMA) to predict presummer rainy season (April-June) precipitation in south China. Evaluation of 5 day forecasts in three seasons (2013-2015) demonstrates the higher skill of probability matching forecasts compared to simple ensemble mean forecasts and shows that the deterministic forecast is a close second. The EPSs overestimate light-to-heavy rainfall (0.1 to 30 mm/12 h) and underestimate heavier rainfall (>30 mm/12 h), with JMA being the worst. By analyzing the synoptic situations predicted by the identified more skillful (ECMWF) and less skillful (JMA and CMA) EPSs and the ensemble sensitivity for four representative cases of torrential rainfall, the transport of warm-moist air into south China by the low-level southwesterly flow, upstream of the torrential rainfall regions, is found to be a key synoptic factor that controls the quantitative precipitation forecast. The results also suggest that prediction of locally produced torrential rainfall is more challenging than prediction of more extensively distributed torrential rainfall. A slight improvement in the performance is obtained by shortening the forecast lead time from 30-36 h to 18-24 h to 6-12 h for the cases with large-scale forcing, but not for the locally produced cases.

  20. Evaluating uncertainty estimates in hydrologic models: borrowing measures from the forecast verification community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K. J. Franz

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available The hydrologic community is generally moving towards the use of probabilistic estimates of streamflow, primarily through the implementation of Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP systems, ensemble data assimilation methods, or multi-modeling platforms. However, evaluation of probabilistic outputs has not necessarily kept pace with ensemble generation. Much of the modeling community is still performing model evaluation using standard deterministic measures, such as error, correlation, or bias, typically applied to the ensemble mean or median. Probabilistic forecast verification methods have been well developed, particularly in the atmospheric sciences, yet few have been adopted for evaluating uncertainty estimates in hydrologic model simulations. In the current paper, we overview existing probabilistic forecast verification methods and apply the methods to evaluate and compare model ensembles produced from two different parameter uncertainty estimation methods: the Generalized Uncertainty Likelihood Estimator (GLUE, and the Shuffle Complex Evolution Metropolis (SCEM. Model ensembles are generated for the National Weather Service SACramento Soil Moisture Accounting (SAC-SMA model for 12 forecast basins located in the Southeastern United States. We evaluate the model ensembles using relevant metrics in the following categories: distribution, correlation, accuracy, conditional statistics, and categorical statistics. We show that the presented probabilistic metrics are easily adapted to model simulation ensembles and provide a robust analysis of model performance associated with parameter uncertainty. Application of these methods requires no information in addition to what is already available as part of traditional model validation methodology and considers the entire ensemble or uncertainty range in the approach.

  1. Comparison between stochastic and machine learning methods for hydrological multi-step ahead forecasting: All forecasts are wrong!

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papacharalampous, Georgia; Tyralis, Hristos; Koutsoyiannis, Demetris

    2017-04-01

    compared to simpler methods. It is pointed out that the ML methods do not differ dramatically from the stochastic methods, while it is interesting that the NN, RF and SVM algorithms used in this study offer potentially very good performance in terms of accuracy. It should be noted that, although this study focuses on hydrological processes, the results are of general scientific interest. Another important point in this study is the use of several methods and metrics. Using fewer methods and fewer metrics would have led to a very different overall picture, particularly if those fewer metrics corresponded to fewer criteria. For this reason, we consider that the proposed methodology is appropriate for the evaluation of forecasting methods.

  2. Forecasting biodiversity in breeding birds using best practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Shawn D.; White, Ethan P.

    2018-01-01

    Biodiversity forecasts are important for conservation, management, and evaluating how well current models characterize natural systems. While the number of forecasts for biodiversity is increasing, there is little information available on how well these forecasts work. Most biodiversity forecasts are not evaluated to determine how well they predict future diversity, fail to account for uncertainty, and do not use time-series data that captures the actual dynamics being studied. We addressed these limitations by using best practices to explore our ability to forecast the species richness of breeding birds in North America. We used hindcasting to evaluate six different modeling approaches for predicting richness. Hindcasts for each method were evaluated annually for a decade at 1,237 sites distributed throughout the continental United States. All models explained more than 50% of the variance in richness, but none of them consistently outperformed a baseline model that predicted constant richness at each site. The best practices implemented in this study directly influenced the forecasts and evaluations. Stacked species distribution models and “naive” forecasts produced poor estimates of uncertainty and accounting for this resulted in these models dropping in the relative performance compared to other models. Accounting for observer effects improved model performance overall, but also changed the rank ordering of models because it did not improve the accuracy of the “naive” model. Considering the forecast horizon revealed that the prediction accuracy decreased across all models as the time horizon of the forecast increased. To facilitate the rapid improvement of biodiversity forecasts, we emphasize the value of specific best practices in making forecasts and evaluating forecasting methods. PMID:29441230

  3. Forecasting biodiversity in breeding birds using best practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David J. Harris

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Biodiversity forecasts are important for conservation, management, and evaluating how well current models characterize natural systems. While the number of forecasts for biodiversity is increasing, there is little information available on how well these forecasts work. Most biodiversity forecasts are not evaluated to determine how well they predict future diversity, fail to account for uncertainty, and do not use time-series data that captures the actual dynamics being studied. We addressed these limitations by using best practices to explore our ability to forecast the species richness of breeding birds in North America. We used hindcasting to evaluate six different modeling approaches for predicting richness. Hindcasts for each method were evaluated annually for a decade at 1,237 sites distributed throughout the continental United States. All models explained more than 50% of the variance in richness, but none of them consistently outperformed a baseline model that predicted constant richness at each site. The best practices implemented in this study directly influenced the forecasts and evaluations. Stacked species distribution models and “naive” forecasts produced poor estimates of uncertainty and accounting for this resulted in these models dropping in the relative performance compared to other models. Accounting for observer effects improved model performance overall, but also changed the rank ordering of models because it did not improve the accuracy of the “naive” model. Considering the forecast horizon revealed that the prediction accuracy decreased across all models as the time horizon of the forecast increased. To facilitate the rapid improvement of biodiversity forecasts, we emphasize the value of specific best practices in making forecasts and evaluating forecasting methods.

  4. Development of an Adaptive Forecasting System: A Case Study of a PC Manufacturer in South Korea

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chihyun Jung

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available We present a case study of the development of an adaptive forecasting system for a leading personal computer (PC manufacturer in South Korea. It is widely accepted that demand forecasting for products with short product life cycles (PLCs is difficult, and the PLC of a PC is generally very short. The firm has various types of products, and the volatile demand patterns differ by product. Moreover, we found that different departments have different requirements when it comes to the accuracy, point-of-time and range of the forecasts. We divide the demand forecasting process into three stages depending on the requirements and purposes. The systematic forecasting process is then introduced to improve the accuracy of demand forecasting and to meet the department-specific requirements. Moreover, a newly devised short-term forecasting method is presented, which utilizes the long-term forecasting results of the preceding stages. We evaluate our systematic forecasting methods based on actual sales data from the PC manufacturer, where our forecasting methods have been implemented.

  5. Probabilistic Electricity Price Forecasting Models by Aggregation of Competitive Predictors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudio Monteiro

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available This article presents original probabilistic price forecasting meta-models (PPFMCP models, by aggregation of competitive predictors, for day-ahead hourly probabilistic price forecasting. The best twenty predictors of the EEM2016 EPF competition are used to create ensembles of hourly spot price forecasts. For each hour, the parameter values of the probability density function (PDF of a Beta distribution for the output variable (hourly price can be directly obtained from the expected and variance values associated to the ensemble for such hour, using three aggregation strategies of predictor forecasts corresponding to three PPFMCP models. A Reliability Indicator (RI and a Loss function Indicator (LI are also introduced to give a measure of uncertainty of probabilistic price forecasts. The three PPFMCP models were satisfactorily applied to the real-world case study of the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL. Results from PPFMCP models showed that PPFMCP model 2, which uses aggregation by weight values according to daily ranks of predictors, was the best probabilistic meta-model from a point of view of mean absolute errors, as well as of RI and LI. PPFMCP model 1, which uses the averaging of predictor forecasts, was the second best meta-model. PPFMCP models allow evaluations of risk decisions based on the price to be made.

  6. Evaluation of artificial neural network techniques for flow forecasting in the River Yangtze, China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. W. Dawson

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available While engineers have been quantifying rainfall-runoff processes since the mid-19th century, it is only in the last decade that artificial neural network models have been applied to the same task. This paper evaluates two neural networks in this context: the popular multilayer perceptron (MLP, and the radial basis function network (RBF. Using six-hourly rainfall-runoff data for the River Yangtze at Yichang (upstream of the Three Gorges Dam for the period 1991 to 1993, it is shown that both neural network types can simulate river flows beyond the range of the training set. In addition, an evaluation of alternative RBF transfer functions demonstrates that the popular Gaussian function, often used in RBF networks, is not necessarily the ‘best’ function to use for river flow forecasting. Comparisons are also made between these neural networks and conventional statistical techniques; stepwise multiple linear regression, auto regressive moving average models and a zero order forecasting approach. Keywords: Artificial neural network, multilayer perception, radial basis function, flood forecasting

  7. Probabilistic Price Forecasting for Day-Ahead and Intraday Markets: Beyond the Statistical Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José R. Andrade

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Forecasting the hourly spot price of day-ahead and intraday markets is particularly challenging in electric power systems characterized by high installed capacity of renewable energy technologies. In particular, periods with low and high price levels are difficult to predict due to a limited number of representative cases in the historical dataset, which leads to forecast bias problems and wide forecast intervals. Moreover, these markets also require the inclusion of multiple explanatory variables, which increases the complexity of the model without guaranteeing a forecasting skill improvement. This paper explores information from daily futures contract trading and forecast of the daily average spot price to correct point and probabilistic forecasting bias. It also shows that an adequate choice of explanatory variables and use of simple models like linear quantile regression can lead to highly accurate spot price point and probabilistic forecasts. In terms of point forecast, the mean absolute error was 3.03 €/MWh for day-ahead market and a maximum value of 2.53 €/MWh was obtained for intraday session 6. The probabilistic forecast results show sharp forecast intervals and deviations from perfect calibration below 7% for all market sessions.

  8. Adaptation of Mesoscale Weather Models to Local Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manobianco, John T.; Taylor, Gregory E.; Case, Jonathan L.; Dianic, Allan V.; Wheeler, Mark W.; Zack, John W.; Nutter, Paul A.

    2003-01-01

    objective and subjective verification methodologies. Objective (e.g., statistical) verification of point forecasts is a stringent measure of model performance, but when used alone, it is not usually sufficient for quantifying the value of the overall contribution of the model to the weather-forecasting process. This is especially true for mesoscale models with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution that may be capable of predicting meteorologically consistent, though not necessarily accurate, fine-scale weather phenomena. Therefore, subjective (phenomenological) evaluation, focusing on selected case studies and specific weather features, such as sea breezes and precipitation, has been performed to help quantify the added value that cannot be inferred solely from objective evaluation.

  9. Call Forecasting for Inbound Call Center

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Vinje

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available In a scenario of inbound call center customer service, the ability to forecast calls is a key element and advantage. By forecasting the correct number of calls a company can predict staffing needs, meet service level requirements, improve customer satisfaction, and benefit from many other optimizations. This project will show how elementary statistics can be used to predict calls for a specific company, forecast the rate at which calls are increasing/decreasing, and determine if the calls may stop at some point.

  10. On probabilistic forecasting of wind power time-series

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pinson, Pierre

    power dynamics. In both cases, the model parameters are adaptively and recursively estimated, time-adaptativity being the result of exponential forgetting of past observations. The probabilistic forecasting methodology is applied at the Horns Rev wind farm in Denmark, for 10-minute ahead probabilistic...... forecasting of wind power generation. Probabilistic forecasts generated from the proposed methodology clearly have higher skill than those obtained from a classical Gaussian assumption about wind power predictive densities. Corresponding point forecasts also exhibit significantly lower error criteria....

  11. A Diagnostics Tool to detect ensemble forecast system anomaly and guide operational decisions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, G. H.; Srivastava, A.; Shrestha, E.; Thiemann, M.; Day, G. N.; Draijer, S.

    2017-12-01

    The hydrologic community is moving toward using ensemble forecasts to take uncertainty into account during the decision-making process. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) implements several types of ensemble forecasts in their decision-making process: ensemble products for a statistical model (Hirsch and enhanced Hirsch); the National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) forecasts based on the classical Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP) technique; and the new NWS Hydrologic Ensemble Forecasting Service (HEFS) forecasts. To remove structural error and apply the forecasts to additional forecast points, the DEP post processes both the AHPS and the HEFS forecasts. These ensemble forecasts provide mass quantities of complex data, and drawing conclusions from these forecasts is time-consuming and difficult. The complexity of these forecasts also makes it difficult to identify system failures resulting from poor data, missing forecasts, and server breakdowns. To address these issues, we developed a diagnostic tool that summarizes ensemble forecasts and provides additional information such as historical forecast statistics, forecast skill, and model forcing statistics. This additional information highlights the key information that enables operators to evaluate the forecast in real-time, dynamically interact with the data, and review additional statistics, if needed, to make better decisions. We used Bokeh, a Python interactive visualization library, and a multi-database management system to create this interactive tool. This tool compiles and stores data into HTML pages that allows operators to readily analyze the data with built-in user interaction features. This paper will present a brief description of the ensemble forecasts, forecast verification results, and the intended applications for the diagnostic tool.

  12. Evaluating long term forecasts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lady, George M. [Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (United States)

    2010-03-15

    The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), and its predecessor organizations, has published projections of U.S. energy production, consumption, distribution and prices annually for over 30 years. A natural issue to raise in evaluating the projections is an assessment of their accuracy compared to eventual outcomes. A related issue is the determination of the sources of 'error' in the projections that are due to differences between the actual versus realized values of the associated assumptions. One way to do this would be to run the computer-based model from which the projections are derived at the time the projected values are realized, using actual rather than assumed values for model assumptions; and, compare these results to the original projections. For long term forecasts, this approach would require that the model's software and hardware configuration be archived and available for many years, possibly decades, into the future. Such archival creates many practical problems; and, in general, it is not being done. This paper reports on an alternative approach for evaluating the projections. In the alternative approach, the model is run many times for cases in which important assumptions are changed individually and in combinations. A database is assembled from the solutions and a regression analysis is conducted for each important projected variable with the associated assumptions chosen as exogenous variables. When actual data are eventually available, the regression results are then used to estimate the sources of the differences in the projections of the endogenous variables compared to their eventual outcomes. The results presented here are for residential and commercial sector natural gas and electricity consumption. (author)

  13. Ecological forecasts: An emerging imperative

    Science.gov (United States)

    James S. Clark; Steven R. Carpenter; Mary Barber; Scott Collins; Andy Dobson; Jonathan A. Foley; David M. Lodge; Mercedes Pascual; Roger Pielke; William Pizer; Cathy Pringle; Walter V. Reid; Kenneth A. Rose; Osvaldo Sala; William H. Schlesinger; Diana H. Wall; David Wear

    2001-01-01

    Planning and decision-making can be improved by access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Availability of new data sets, together with progress in computation and statistics, will increase our ability to forecast ecosystem change. An agenda that would lead toward a capacity to produce, evaluate, and communicate forecasts...

  14. Operational forecasting of human-biometeorological conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giannaros, T. M.; Lagouvardos, K.; Kotroni, V.; Matzarakis, A.

    2018-03-01

    This paper presents the development of an operational forecasting service focusing on human-biometeorological conditions. The service is based on the coupling of numerical weather prediction models with an advanced human-biometeorological model. Human thermal perception and stress forecasts are issued on a daily basis for Greece, in both point and gridded format. A user-friendly presentation approach is adopted for communicating the forecasts to the public via the worldwide web. The development of the presented service highlights the feasibility of replacing standard meteorological parameters and/or indices used in operational weather forecasting activities for assessing the thermal environment. This is of particular significance for providing effective, human-biometeorology-oriented, warnings for both heat waves and cold outbreaks.

  15. forecasting with nonlinear time series model: a monte-carlo

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    PUBLICATIONS1

    erated recursively up to any step greater than one. For nonlinear time series model, point forecast for step one can be done easily like in the linear case but forecast for a step greater than or equal to ..... London. Franses, P. H. (1998). Time series models for business and Economic forecasting, Cam- bridge University press.

  16. Evaluation Of Statistical Models For Forecast Errors From The HBV-Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engeland, K.; Kolberg, S.; Renard, B.; Stensland, I.

    2009-04-01

    Three statistical models for the forecast errors for inflow to the Langvatn reservoir in Northern Norway have been constructed and tested according to how well the distribution and median values of the forecasts errors fit to the observations. For the first model observed and forecasted inflows were transformed by the Box-Cox transformation before a first order autoregressive model was constructed for the forecast errors. The parameters were conditioned on climatic conditions. In the second model the Normal Quantile Transformation (NQT) was applied on observed and forecasted inflows before a similar first order autoregressive model was constructed for the forecast errors. For the last model positive and negative errors were modeled separately. The errors were first NQT-transformed before a model where the mean values were conditioned on climate, forecasted inflow and yesterday's error. To test the three models we applied three criterions: We wanted a) the median values to be close to the observed values; b) the forecast intervals to be narrow; c) the distribution to be correct. The results showed that it is difficult to obtain a correct model for the forecast errors, and that the main challenge is to account for the auto-correlation in the errors. Model 1 and 2 gave similar results, and the main drawback is that the distributions are not correct. The 95% forecast intervals were well identified, but smaller forecast intervals were over-estimated, and larger intervals were under-estimated. Model 3 gave a distribution that fits better, but the median values do not fit well since the auto-correlation is not properly accounted for. If the 95% forecast interval is of interest, Model 2 is recommended. If the whole distribution is of interest, Model 3 is recommended.

  17. A national-scale seasonal hydrological forecast system: development and evaluation over Britain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. A. Bell

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Skilful winter seasonal predictions for the North Atlantic circulation and northern Europe have now been demonstrated and the potential for seasonal hydrological forecasting in the UK is now being explored. One of the techniques being used combines seasonal rainfall forecasts provided by operational weather forecast systems with hydrological modelling tools to provide estimates of seasonal mean river flows up to a few months ahead. The work presented here shows how spatial information contained in a distributed hydrological model typically requiring high-resolution (daily or better rainfall data can be used to provide an initial condition for a much simpler forecast model tailored to use low-resolution monthly rainfall forecasts. Rainfall forecasts (hindcasts from the GloSea5 model (1996 to 2009 are used to provide the first assessment of skill in these national-scale flow forecasts. The skill in the combined modelling system is assessed for different seasons and regions of Britain, and compared to what might be achieved using other approaches such as use of an ensemble of historical rainfall in a hydrological model, or a simple flow persistence forecast. The analysis indicates that only limited forecast skill is achievable for Spring and Summer seasonal hydrological forecasts; however, Autumn and Winter flows can be reasonably well forecast using (ensemble mean rainfall forecasts based on either GloSea5 forecasts or historical rainfall (the preferred type of forecast depends on the region. Flow forecasts using ensemble mean GloSea5 rainfall perform most consistently well across Britain, and provide the most skilful forecasts overall at the 3-month lead time. Much of the skill (64 % in the 1-month ahead seasonal flow forecasts can be attributed to the hydrological initial condition (particularly in regions with a significant groundwater contribution to flows, whereas for the 3-month ahead lead time, GloSea5 forecasts account for  ∼ 70

  18. Very Short-term Nonparametric Probabilistic Forecasting of Renewable Energy Generation - with Application to Solar Energy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Golestaneh, Faranak; Pinson, Pierre; Gooi, Hoay Beng

    2016-01-01

    Due to the inherent uncertainty involved in renewable energy forecasting, uncertainty quantification is a key input to maintain acceptable levels of reliability and profitability in power system operation. A proposal is formulated and evaluated here for the case of solar power generation, when only...... approach to generate very short-term predictive densities, i.e., for lead times between a few minutes to one hour ahead, with fast frequency updates. We rely on an Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) as a fast regression model, trained in varied ways to obtain both point and quantile forecasts of solar power...... generation. Four probabilistic methods are implemented as benchmarks. Rival approaches are evaluated based on a number of test cases for two solar power generation sites in different climatic regions, allowing us to show that our approach results in generation of skilful and reliable probabilistic forecasts...

  19. Using forecast information for storm ride-through control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Barahona Garzón, Braulio; Trombe, Pierre-Julien; Vincent, Claire Louise

    2013-01-01

    Using probabilistic forecast information in control algorithms can improve the performance of wind farms during periods of extreme winds. This work presents a wind farm supervisor control concept that uses probabilistic forecast information to ride-through a storm with softer ramps of power. Wind...... speed forecasts are generated with a statistical approach (i.e. time series models). The supervisor control is based on a set of logical rules that consider point forecasts and predictive densities to ramp-down the power of the wind farm before the storm hits. The potential of this supervisor control...

  20. The Optimal Confidence Intervals for Agricultural Products’ Price Forecasts Based on Hierarchical Historical Errors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yi Wang

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available With the levels of confidence and system complexity, interval forecasts and entropy analysis can deliver more information than point forecasts. In this paper, we take receivers’ demands as our starting point, use the trade-off model between accuracy and informativeness as the criterion to construct the optimal confidence interval, derive the theoretical formula of the optimal confidence interval and propose a practical and efficient algorithm based on entropy theory and complexity theory. In order to improve the estimation precision of the error distribution, the point prediction errors are STRATIFIED according to prices and the complexity of the system; the corresponding prediction error samples are obtained by the prices stratification; and the error distributions are estimated by the kernel function method and the stability of the system. In a stable and orderly environment for price forecasting, we obtain point prediction error samples by the weighted local region and RBF (Radial basis function neural network methods, forecast the intervals of the soybean meal and non-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism soybean continuous futures closing prices and implement unconditional coverage, independence and conditional coverage tests for the simulation results. The empirical results are compared from various interval evaluation indicators, different levels of noise, several target confidence levels and different point prediction methods. The analysis shows that the optimal interval construction method is better than the equal probability method and the shortest interval method and has good anti-noise ability with the reduction of system entropy; the hierarchical estimation error method can obtain higher accuracy and better interval estimation than the non-hierarchical method in a stable system.

  1. Performance Evaluation of the Naval Research Laboratory COAMPS on the Forecast of Typhoon Herb in the Western Pacific in 1996

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Peng, Melinda

    1997-01-01

    ... Herb that hit Taiwan island and caused severe damage. Performance of the COAMPS on the track forecast, wind and precipitation forecast, and interaction of the typhoon with topography is evaluated and analyzed.

  2. Evaluating Forecasts, Narratives and Policy Using a Test of Invariance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer L. Castle

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Economic policy agencies produce forecasts with accompanying narratives, and base policy changes on the resulting anticipated developments in the target variables. Systematic forecast failure, defined as large, persistent deviations of the outturns from the numerical forecasts, can make the associated narrative false, which would in turn question the validity of the entailed policy implementation. We establish when systematic forecast failure entails failure of the accompanying narrative, which we call forediction failure, and when that in turn implies policy invalidity. Most policy regime changes involve location shifts, which can induce forediction failure unless the policy variable is super exogenous in the policy model. We propose a step-indicator saturation test to check in advance for invariance to policy changes. Systematic forecast failure, or a lack of invariance, previously justified by narratives reveals such stories to be economic fiction.

  3. Development and testing of improved statistical wind power forecasting methods.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mendes, J.; Bessa, R.J.; Keko, H.; Sumaili, J.; Miranda, V.; Ferreira, C.; Gama, J.; Botterud, A.; Zhou, Z.; Wang, J. (Decision and Information Sciences); (INESC Porto)

    2011-12-06

    Wind power forecasting (WPF) provides important inputs to power system operators and electricity market participants. It is therefore not surprising that WPF has attracted increasing interest within the electric power industry. In this report, we document our research on improving statistical WPF algorithms for point, uncertainty, and ramp forecasting. Below, we provide a brief introduction to the research presented in the following chapters. For a detailed overview of the state-of-the-art in wind power forecasting, we refer to [1]. Our related work on the application of WPF in operational decisions is documented in [2]. Point forecasts of wind power are highly dependent on the training criteria used in the statistical algorithms that are used to convert weather forecasts and observational data to a power forecast. In Chapter 2, we explore the application of information theoretic learning (ITL) as opposed to the classical minimum square error (MSE) criterion for point forecasting. In contrast to the MSE criterion, ITL criteria do not assume a Gaussian distribution of the forecasting errors. We investigate to what extent ITL criteria yield better results. In addition, we analyze time-adaptive training algorithms and how they enable WPF algorithms to cope with non-stationary data and, thus, to adapt to new situations without requiring additional offline training of the model. We test the new point forecasting algorithms on two wind farms located in the U.S. Midwest. Although there have been advancements in deterministic WPF, a single-valued forecast cannot provide information on the dispersion of observations around the predicted value. We argue that it is essential to generate, together with (or as an alternative to) point forecasts, a representation of the wind power uncertainty. Wind power uncertainty representation can take the form of probabilistic forecasts (e.g., probability density function, quantiles), risk indices (e.g., prediction risk index) or scenarios

  4. The development and evaluation of a hydrological seasonal forecast system prototype for predicting spring flood volumes in Swedish rivers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foster, Kean; Bertacchi Uvo, Cintia; Olsson, Jonas

    2018-05-01

    Hydropower makes up nearly half of Sweden's electrical energy production. However, the distribution of the water resources is not aligned with demand, as most of the inflows to the reservoirs occur during the spring flood period. This means that carefully planned reservoir management is required to help redistribute water resources to ensure optimal production and accurate forecasts of the spring flood volume (SFV) is essential for this. The current operational SFV forecasts use a historical ensemble approach where the HBV model is forced with historical observations of precipitation and temperature. In this work we develop and test a multi-model prototype, building on previous work, and evaluate its ability to forecast the SFV in 84 sub-basins in northern Sweden. The hypothesis explored in this work is that a multi-model seasonal forecast system incorporating different modelling approaches is generally more skilful at forecasting the SFV in snow dominated regions than a forecast system that utilises only one approach. The testing is done using cross-validated hindcasts for the period 1981-2015 and the results are evaluated against both climatology and the current system to determine skill. Both the multi-model methods considered showed skill over the reference forecasts. The version that combined the historical modelling chain, dynamical modelling chain, and statistical modelling chain performed better than the other and was chosen for the prototype. The prototype was able to outperform the current operational system 57 % of the time on average and reduce the error in the SFV by ˜ 6 % across all sub-basins and forecast dates.

  5. Forecasting the State of Health of Electric Vehicle Batteries to Evaluate the Viability of Car Sharing Practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivana Semanjski

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Car-sharing practices are introducing electric vehicles (EVs into their fleet. However, the literature suggests that at this point shared EV systems are failing to reach satisfactory commercial viability. A potential reason for this is the effect of higher vehicle usage, which is characteristic of car sharing, and the implications on the battery’s state of health (SoH. In this paper, we forecast the SoH of two identical EVs being used in different car-sharing practices. For this purpose, we use real life transaction data from charging stations and different EV sensors. The results indicate that insight into users’ driving and charging behavior can provide a valuable point of reference for car-sharing system designers. In particular, the forecasting results show that the moment when an EV battery reaches its theoretical end of life can differ in as much as a quarter of the time when vehicles are shared under different conditions.

  6. Performance evaluation of ionospheric time delay forecasting models using GPS observations at a low-latitude station

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sivavaraprasad, G.; Venkata Ratnam, D.

    2017-07-01

    Ionospheric delay is one of the major atmospheric effects on the performance of satellite-based radio navigation systems. It limits the accuracy and availability of Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements, related to critical societal and safety applications. The temporal and spatial gradients of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) are driven by several unknown priori geophysical conditions and solar-terrestrial phenomena. Thereby, the prediction of ionospheric delay is challenging especially over Indian sub-continent. Therefore, an appropriate short/long-term ionospheric delay forecasting model is necessary. Hence, the intent of this paper is to forecast ionospheric delays by considering day to day, monthly and seasonal ionospheric TEC variations. GPS-TEC data (January 2013-December 2013) is extracted from a multi frequency GPS receiver established at K L University, Vaddeswaram, Guntur station (geographic: 16.37°N, 80.37°E; geomagnetic: 7.44°N, 153.75°E), India. An evaluation, in terms of forecasting capabilities, of three ionospheric time delay models - an Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) model, Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, and a Holt-Winter's model is presented. The performances of these models are evaluated through error measurement analysis during both geomagnetic quiet and disturbed days. It is found that, ARMA model is effectively forecasting the ionospheric delay with an accuracy of 82-94%, which is 10% more superior to ARIMA and Holt-Winter's models. Moreover, the modeled VTEC derived from International Reference Ionosphere, IRI (IRI-2012) model and new global TEC model, Neustrelitz TEC Model (NTCM-GL) have compared with forecasted VTEC values of ARMA, ARIMA and Holt-Winter's models during geomagnetic quiet days. The forecast results are indicating that ARMA model would be useful to set up an early warning system for ionospheric disturbances at low latitude regions.

  7. Probabilistic runoff volume forecasting in risk-based optimization for RTC of urban drainage systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Löwe, Roland; Vezzaro, Luca; Mikkelsen, Peter Steen

    2016-01-01

    overflow risk. The stochastic control framework and the performance of the runoff forecasting models are tested in a case study in Copenhagen (76 km2 with 6 sub-catchments and 7 control points) using 2-h radar rainfall forecasts and inlet flows to control points computed from a variety of noisy...... smoothing. Simulations demonstrate notable improvements of the control efficiency when considering forecast information and additionally when considering forecast uncertainty, compared with optimization based on current basin fillings only....

  8. Evaluations of Extended-Range tropical Cyclone Forecasts in the Western North Pacific by using the Ensemble Reforecasts: Preliminary Results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Hsiao-Chung; Chen, Pang-Cheng; Elsberry, Russell L.

    2017-04-01

    The objective of this study is to evaluate the predictability of the extended-range forecasts of tropical cyclone (TC) in the western North Pacific using reforecasts from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) during 1996-2015, and from the Climate Forecast System (CFS) during 1999-2010. Tsai and Elsberry have demonstrated that an opportunity exists to support hydrological operations by using the extended-range TC formation and track forecasts in the western North Pacific from the ECMWF 32-day ensemble. To demonstrate this potential for the decision-making processes regarding water resource management and hydrological operation in Taiwan reservoir watershed areas, special attention is given to the skill of the NCEP GEFS and CFS models in predicting the TCs affecting the Taiwan area. The first objective of this study is to analyze the skill of NCEP GEFS and CFS TC forecasts and quantify the forecast uncertainties via verifications of categorical binary forecasts and probabilistic forecasts. The second objective is to investigate the relationships among the large-scale environmental factors [e.g., El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), etc.] and the model forecast errors by using the reforecasts. Preliminary results are indicating that the skill of the TC activity forecasts based on the raw forecasts can be further improved if the model biases are minimized by utilizing these reforecasts.

  9. Affective forecasting and self-rated symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hypomania: evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoerger, Michael; Quirk, Stuart W; Chapman, Benjamin P; Duberstein, Paul R

    2012-01-01

    Emerging research has examined individual differences in affective forecasting; however, we are aware of no published study to date linking psychopathology symptoms to affective forecasting problems. Pitting cognitive theory against depressive realism theory, we examined whether dysphoria was associated with negatively biased affective forecasts or greater accuracy. Participants (n=325) supplied predicted and actual emotional reactions for three days surrounding an emotionally evocative relational event, Valentine's Day. Predictions were made a month prior to the holiday. Consistent with cognitive theory, we found evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias-the tendency of individuals in dysphoric states to overpredict negative emotional reactions to future events. The dysphoric forecasting bias was robust across ratings of positive and negative affect, forecasts for pleasant and unpleasant scenarios, continuous and categorical operationalisations of dysphoria, and three time points of observation. Similar biases were not observed in analyses examining the independent effects of anxiety and hypomania. Findings provide empirical evidence for the long-assumed influence of depressive symptoms on future expectations. The present investigation has implications for affective forecasting studies examining information-processing constructs, decision making, and broader domains of psychopathology.

  10. Affective Forecasting and Self-Rated Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, and Hypomania: Evidence for a Dysphoric Forecasting Bias

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoerger, Michael; Quirk, Stuart W.; Chapman, Benjamin P.; Duberstein, Paul R.

    2011-01-01

    Emerging research has examined individual differences in affective forecasting; however, we are aware of no published study to date linking psychopathology symptoms to affective forecasting problems. Pitting cognitive theory against depressive realism theory, we examined whether dysphoria was associated with negatively biased affective forecasts or greater accuracy. Participants (n = 325) supplied predicted and actual emotional reactions for three days surrounding an emotionally-evocative relational event, Valentine’s Day. Predictions were made a month prior to the holiday. Consistent with cognitive theory, we found evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias – the tendency of individuals in dysphoric states to overpredict negative emotional reactions to future events. The dysphoric forecasting bias was robust across ratings of positive and negative affect, forecasts for pleasant and unpleasant scenarios, continuous and categorical operationalizations of dysphoria, and three time points of observation. Similar biases were not observed in analyses examining the independent effects of anxiety and hypomania. Findings provide empirical evidence for the long assumed influence of depressive symptoms on future expectations. The present investigation has implications for affective forecasting studies examining information processing constructs, decision making, and broader domains of psychopathology. PMID:22397734

  11. Wind power forecasting accuracy and uncertainty in Finland

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Holttinen, H.; Miettinen, J.; Sillanpaeae, S.

    2013-04-15

    Wind power cannot be dispatched so the production levels need to be forecasted for electricity market trading. Lower prediction errors mean lower regulation balancing costs, since relatively less energy needs to go through balance settlement. From the power system operator point of view, wind power forecast errors will impact the system net imbalances when the share of wind power increases, and more accurate forecasts mean less regulating capacity will be activated from the real time Regulating Power Market. In this publication short term forecasting of wind power is studied mainly from a wind power producer point of view. The forecast errors and imbalance costs from the day-ahead Nordic electricity markets are calculated based on real data from distributed wind power plants. Improvements to forecasting accuracy are presented using several wind forecast providers, and measures for uncertainty of the forecast are presented. Aggregation of sites lowers relative share of prediction errors considerably, up to 60%. The balancing costs were also reduced up to 60%, from 3 euro/MWh for one site to 1-1.4 euro/MWh to aggregate 24 sites. Pooling wind power production for balance settlement will be very beneficial, and larger producers who can have sites from larger geographical area will benefit in lower imbalance costs. The aggregation benefits were already significant for smaller areas, resulting in 30-40% decrease in forecast errors and 13-36% decrease in unit balancing costs, depending on the year. The resulting costs are strongly dependent on Regulating Market prices that determine the prices for the imbalances. Similar level of forecast errors resulted in 40% higher imbalance costs for 2012 compared with 2011. Combining wind forecasts from different Numerical Weather Prediction providers was studied with different combination methods for 6 sites. Averaging different providers' forecasts will lower the forecast errors by 6% for day-ahead purposes. When combining

  12. Structural Forecasts for the Danish Economy Using The Dynamic-AAGE Model

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Adams, Philip D; Andersen, Lill Thanning; Jacobsen, Lars Bo

    2002-01-01

    developed for MONASH has now been applied to Dynamic-AAGE to generate structural forecasts for the Danish economy. The starting point for the Dynamic-AAGE forecasts is a set of scenarios for the macro economy supplied by a specialist-forecasting agency, currently the Danish Economic Council. Expert...

  13. Evaluation of precipitation forecasts from 3D-Var and hybrid GSI-based system during Indian summer monsoon 2015

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Sanjeev Kumar; Prasad, V. S.

    2018-02-01

    This paper presents a systematic investigation of medium-range rainfall forecasts from two versions of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF)-Global Forecast System based on three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) and hybrid analysis system namely, NGFS and HNGFS, respectively, during Indian summer monsoon (June-September) 2015. The NGFS uses gridpoint statistical interpolation (GSI) 3D-Var data assimilation system, whereas HNGFS uses hybrid 3D ensemble-variational scheme. The analysis includes the evaluation of rainfall fields and comparisons of rainfall using statistical score such as mean precipitation, bias, correlation coefficient, root mean square error and forecast improvement factor. In addition to these, categorical scores like Peirce skill score and bias score are also computed to describe particular aspects of forecasts performance. The comparison results of mean precipitation reveal that both the versions of model produced similar large-scale feature of Indian summer monsoon rainfall for day-1 through day-5 forecasts. The inclusion of fully flow-dependent background error covariance significantly improved the wet biases in HNGFS over the Indian Ocean. The forecast improvement factor and Peirce skill score in the HNGFS have also found better than NGFS for day-1 through day-5 forecasts.

  14. Forecasting metal prices: Do forecasters herd?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pierdzioch, C.; Rulke, J. C.; Stadtmann, G.

    2013-01-01

    We analyze more than 20,000 forecasts of nine metal prices at four different forecast horizons. We document that forecasts are heterogeneous and report that anti-herding appears to be a source of this heterogeneity. Forecaster anti-herding reflects strategic interactions among forecasters...

  15. Evaluation and Quality Control for the Copernicus Seasonal Forecast Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manubens, N.; Hunter, A.; Bedia, J.; Bretonnière, P. A.; Bhend, J.; Doblas-Reyes, F. J.

    2017-12-01

    The EU funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) will provide authoritative information about past, current and future climate for a wide range of users, from climate scientists to stakeholders from a wide range of sectors including insurance, energy or transport. It has been recognized that providing information about the products' quality and provenance is paramount to establish trust in the service and allow users to make best use of the available information. This presentation outlines the work being conducted within the Quality Assurance for Multi-model Seasonal Forecast Products project (QA4Seas). The aim of QA4Seas is to develop a strategy for the evaluation and quality control (EQC) of the multi-model seasonal forecasts provided by C3S. First, we present the set of guidelines the data providers must comply with, ensuring the data is fully traceable and harmonized across data sets. Second, we discuss the ongoing work on defining a provenance and metadata model that is able to encode such information, and that can be extended to describe the steps followed to obtain the final verification products such as maps and time series of forecast quality measures. The metadata model is based on the Resource Description Framework W3C standard, being thus extensible and reusable. It benefits from widely adopted vocabularies to describe data provenance and workflows, as well as from expert consensus and community-support for the development of the verification and downscaling specific ontologies. Third, we describe the open source software being developed to generate fully reproducible and certifiable seasonal forecast products, which also attaches provenance and metadata information to the verification measures and enables the user to visually inspect the quality of the C3S products. QA4Seas is seeking collaboration with similar initiatives, as well as extending the discussion to interested parties outside the C3S community to share experiences and establish global

  16. Forecasting the Emergency Department Patients Flow.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Afilal, Mohamed; Yalaoui, Farouk; Dugardin, Frédéric; Amodeo, Lionel; Laplanche, David; Blua, Philippe

    2016-07-01

    Emergency department (ED) have become the patient's main point of entrance in modern hospitals causing it frequent overcrowding, thus hospital managers are increasingly paying attention to the ED in order to provide better quality service for patients. One of the key elements for a good management strategy is demand forecasting. In this case, forecasting patients flow, which will help decision makers to optimize human (doctors, nurses…) and material(beds, boxs…) resources allocation. The main interest of this research is forecasting daily attendance at an emergency department. The study was conducted on the Emergency Department of Troyes city hospital center, France, in which we propose a new practical ED patients classification that consolidate the CCMU and GEMSA categories into one category and innovative time-series based models to forecast long and short term daily attendance. The models we developed for this case study shows very good performances (up to 91,24 % for the annual Total flow forecast) and robustness to epidemic periods.

  17. Hydro-economic assessment of hydrological forecasting systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boucher, M.-A.; Tremblay, D.; Delorme, L.; Perreault, L.; Anctil, F.

    2012-01-01

    SummaryAn increasing number of publications show that ensemble hydrological forecasts exhibit good performance when compared to observed streamflow. Many studies also conclude that ensemble forecasts lead to a better performance than deterministic ones. This investigation takes one step further by not only comparing ensemble and deterministic forecasts to observed values, but by employing the forecasts in a stochastic decision-making assistance tool for hydroelectricity production, during a flood event on the Gatineau River in Canada. This allows the comparison between different types of forecasts according to their value in terms of energy, spillage and storage in a reservoir. The motivation for this is to adopt the point of view of an end-user, here a hydroelectricity production society. We show that ensemble forecasts exhibit excellent performances when compared to observations and are also satisfying when involved in operation management for electricity production. Further improvement in terms of productivity can be reached through the use of a simple post-processing method.

  18. Probabilistic electricity price forecasting with variational heteroscedastic Gaussian process and active learning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kou, Peng; Liang, Deliang; Gao, Lin; Lou, Jianyong

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • A novel active learning model for the probabilistic electricity price forecasting. • Heteroscedastic Gaussian process that captures the local volatility of the electricity price. • Variational Bayesian learning that avoids over-fitting. • Active learning algorithm that reduces the computational efforts. - Abstract: Electricity price forecasting is essential for the market participants in their decision making. Nevertheless, the accuracy of such forecasting cannot be guaranteed due to the high variability of the price data. For this reason, in many cases, rather than merely point forecasting results, market participants are more interested in the probabilistic price forecasting results, i.e., the prediction intervals of the electricity price. Focusing on this issue, this paper proposes a new model for the probabilistic electricity price forecasting. This model is based on the active learning technique and the variational heteroscedastic Gaussian process (VHGP). It provides the heteroscedastic Gaussian prediction intervals, which effectively quantify the heteroscedastic uncertainties associated with the price data. Because the high computational effort of VHGP hinders its application to the large-scale electricity price forecasting tasks, we design an active learning algorithm to select a most informative training subset from the whole available training set. By constructing the forecasting model on this smaller subset, the computational efforts can be significantly reduced. In this way, the practical applicability of the proposed model is enhanced. The forecasting performance and the computational time of the proposed model are evaluated using the real-world electricity price data, which is obtained from the ANEM, PJM, and New England ISO

  19. Evaluating sub-seasonal skill in probabilistic forecasts of Atmospheric Rivers and associated extreme events

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subramanian, A. C.; Lavers, D.; Matsueda, M.; Shukla, S.; Cayan, D. R.; Ralph, M.

    2017-12-01

    Atmospheric rivers (ARs) - elongated plumes of intense moisture transport - are a primary source of hydrological extremes, water resources and impactful weather along the West Coast of North America and Europe. There is strong demand in the water management, societal infrastructure and humanitarian sectors for reliable sub-seasonal forecasts, particularly of extreme events, such as floods and droughts so that actions to mitigate disastrous impacts can be taken with sufficient lead-time. Many recent studies have shown that ARs in the Pacific and the Atlantic are modulated by large-scale modes of climate variability. Leveraging the improved understanding of how these large-scale climate modes modulate the ARs in these two basins, we use the state-of-the-art multi-model forecast systems such as the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) and the Subseasonal-to-Seasonal (S2S) database to help inform and assess the probabilistic prediction of ARs and related extreme weather events over the North American and European West Coasts. We will present results from evaluating probabilistic forecasts of extreme precipitation and AR activity at the sub-seasonal scale. In particular, results from the comparison of two winters (2015-16 and 2016-17) will be shown, winters which defied canonical El Niño teleconnection patterns over North America and Europe. We further extend this study to analyze probabilistic forecast skill of AR events in these two basins and the variability in forecast skill during certain regimes of large-scale climate modes.

  20. A Forecast Model for Unemployment by Education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tranæs, Torben; Larsen, Anders Holm; Groes, Niels

    1994-01-01

    We present a dynamic forecast model for the labour market: demand for labour by education and the distribution of labour by education among industries are determined endogenously with overall demand by industry given exogenously. The model is derived from a simple behavioural equation based on a ...... for educational groups, where the initial forecast year is a change point for unemployment....

  1. Forecasts: uncertain, inaccurate and biased?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nicolaisen, Morten Skou; Ambrasaite, Inga; Salling, Kim Bang

    2012-01-01

    Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is the dominating methodology for appraisal of transport infrastructure projects across the globe. In order to adequately assess the costs and benefits of such projects two types of forecasts are crucial to the validity of the appraisal. First are the forecasts of cons....... It is recommended that more attention is given to monitoring completed projects so future forecasts can benefit from better data availability through systematic ex-post evaluations, and an example of how to utilize such data in practice is presented.......Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is the dominating methodology for appraisal of transport infrastructure projects across the globe. In order to adequately assess the costs and benefits of such projects two types of forecasts are crucial to the validity of the appraisal. First are the forecasts...... of construction costs, which account for the majority of total project costs. Second are the forecasts of travel time savings, which account for the majority of total project benefits. The latter of these is, inter alia, determined by forecasts of travel demand, which we shall use as a proxy for the forecasting...

  2. Forecasting the Dst index using a swarm-optimized neural network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lazzús, J. A.; Vega, P.; Rojas, P.; Salfate, I.

    2017-08-01

    A hybrid technique that combines an artificial neural network with a particle swarm optimization (ANN+PSO) was used to forecast the disturbance storm time (Dst) index from 1 to 6 h ahead. Our ANN was optimized by PSO to update ANN weights and to predict the short-term Dst index using past values as input parameters. The database used contains 233,760 hourly data from 1 January 1990 to 31 August 2016, considering storms and quiet period, grouped into three data sets: learning set (with 116,880 hourly data points), validation set (with 58,440 data points), and testing set (with 58,440 data points). Several ANN topologies were studied, and the best architecture was determined by systematically adding neurons and evaluating the root-mean-square error (RMSE) and the correlation coefficient (R) during the training process. These results show that the hybrid algorithm is a powerful technique for forecasting the Dst index a short time in advance like t + 1 to t + 3, with RMSE from 3.5 nT to 7.5 nT, and R from 0.98 to 0.90. However, t + 4 to t + 6 predictions become slightly more uncertain, with RMSE from 8.8 nT to 10.9 nT, and R from 0.86 to 0.79. Additionally, an exhaustive analysis according to geomagnetic storm magnitude was conducted. In general, the results show that our hybrid algorithm can be correctly trained to forecast the Dst index with appropriate precision and that Dst past behavior significantly affects adequate training and predicting capabilities of the implemented ANN.

  3. Evaluating the Predictability of South-East Asian Floods Using ECMWF and GloFAS Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pillosu, F. M.

    2017-12-01

    Between July and September 2017, the monsoon season caused widespread heavy rainfall and severe floods across countries in South-East Asia, notably in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, with deadly consequences. According to the U.N., in Bangladesh 140 people lost their lives and 700,000 homes were destroyed; in Nepal at least 143 people died, and more than 460,000 people were forced to leave their homes; in India there were 726 victims of flooding and landslides, 3 million people were affected by the monsoon floods and 2000 relief camps were established. Monsoon season happens regularly every year in South Asia, but local authorities reported the last monsoon season as the worst in several years. What made the last monsoon season particularly severe in certain regions? Are these causes clear from the forecasts? Regarding the meteorological characterization of the event, an analysis of forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) for different lead times (from seasonal to short range) will be shown to evaluate how far in advance this event was predicted and start discussion on what were the factors that led to such a severe event. To illustrate hydrological aspects, forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) will be shown. GloFAS is developed at ECMWF in co-operation with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and with the support of national authorities and research institutions such as the University of Reading. It will become operational at the end of 2017 as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. GloFAS couples state-of-the-art weather forecasts with a hydrological model to provide a cross-border system with early flood guidance information to help humanitarian agencies and national hydro-meteorological services to strengthen and improve forecasting capacity, preparedness and mitigation of natural hazards. In this case GloFAS has shown good potential to become a useful tool for better and

  4. Rebuttal of "Polar bear population forecasts: a public-policy forecasting audit"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amstrup, Steven C.; Caswell, Hal; DeWeaver, Eric; Stirling, Ian; Douglas, David C.; Marcot, Bruce G.; Hunter, Christine M.

    2009-01-01

    Observed declines in the Arctic sea ice have resulted in a variety of negative effects on polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Projections for additional future declines in sea ice resulted in a proposal to list polar bears as a threatened species under the United States Endangered Species Act. To provide information for the Department of the Interior's listing-decision process, the US Geological Survey (USGS) produced a series of nine research reports evaluating the present and future status of polar bears throughout their range. In response, Armstrong et al. [Armstrong, J. S., K. C. Green, W. Soon. 2008. Polar bear population forecasts: A public-policy forecasting audit. Interfaces 38(5) 382–405], which we will refer to as AGS, performed an audit of two of these nine reports. AGS claimed that the general circulation models upon which the USGS reports relied were not valid forecasting tools, that USGS researchers were not objective or lacked independence from policy decisions, that they did not utilize all available information in constructing their forecasts, and that they violated numerous principles of forecasting espoused by AGS. AGS (p. 382) concluded that the two USGS reports were "unscientific and inconsequential to decision makers." We evaluate the AGS audit and show how AGS are mistaken or misleading on every claim. We provide evidence that general circulation models are useful in forecasting future climate conditions and that corporate and government leaders are relying on these models to do so. We clarify the strict independence of the USGS from the listing decision. We show that the allegations of failure to follow the principles of forecasting espoused by AGS are either incorrect or are based on misconceptions about the Arctic environment, polar bear biology, or statistical and mathematical methods. We conclude by showing that the AGS principles of forecasting are too ambiguous and subjective to be used as a reliable basis for auditing scientific

  5. Linear Algorithms for Radioelectric Spectrum Forecast

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis F. Pedraza

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the development and evaluation of two linear algorithms for forecasting reception power for different channels at an assigned spectrum band of global systems for mobile communications (GSM, in order to analyze the spatial opportunity for reuse of frequencies by secondary users (SUs in a cognitive radio (CR network. The algorithms employed correspond to seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH, which allow for a forecast of channel occupancy status. Results are evaluated using the following criteria: availability and occupancy time for channels, different types of mean absolute error, and observation time. The contributions of this work include a more integral forecast as the algorithm not only forecasts reception power but also the occupancy and availability time of a channel to determine its precision percentage during the use by primary users (PUs and SUs within a CR system. Algorithm analyses demonstrate a better performance for SARIMA over GARCH algorithm in most of the evaluated variables.

  6. Evaluation of climatic forecasts of rainfall for the Tlaxcala State (Mexico): 1998-2002

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gay Garcia, C. [Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Mexico, D.F. (Mexico); Hernandez Vazquez, M.; Jimenez Lopez, J. [Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Biologicas, Universidad Autonoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala (Mexico); Lezama Gutierrez, J. [Departamento de Agrobiologia, Universidad Autonoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala (Mexico); Magana Rueda, V.O.; Morales Acoltzi, T. [Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, UNAM, Mexico, D.F. (Mexico); Orozco Flores, S. [Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Biologicas, Universidad Autonoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala (Mexico)

    2004-07-01

    During the second semester of 1997 the Project Utilizacion de pronosticos climaticos para actividades agricolas de Tlaxcala was instrumented with the purpose of aiding decision making in agricultural activities in the estate of Tlaxcala, Mexico. The main objective of the project was to characterize extreme values of precipitation associated with El Nino/La Nina events, to produce useful forecasts for decision making. This was achieved through close contacts with the farmers whose specific needs were taken into account to the extent possible. In a sense such forecasts became forecasts watched over by producers. The method of ensemble of analogs was applied to historical data. The evaluation of annual and monthly forecasts is presented here. The results show that knowledge about the regional climate has been gained as it is reflected by the skill of the method to forecast. The forecast for the region, for the year 2003 is analyzed in terms of the precipitation anomalies. [Spanish] En el segundo semestre de 1997, se implemento el proyecto de investigacion Utilizacion de pronosticos climaticos para actividades agricolas en el estado de Tlaxcala. El objetivo principal del proyecto original fue el de caracterizar valores extremos de precipitacion asociados a los eventos El Nino/La Nina, producir pronosticos mensuales de precipitacion que fueran practicos en la toma de decisiones para los cultivos de temporal. Esto ultimo fue discutido con los productores cuyas necesidades y sugerencias fueron tomadas en cuenta, considerando un pronostico lo mas extendido posible. De esta manera los pronosticos se tornaron Pronosticos vigilados por los productores. El metodo de ensamble de analogos observados fue aplicado para generar los pronosticos de 1998-2002. La evaluacion de los pronosticos anuales y mensuales se presenta aqui. Los resultados muestran que se ha ganado conocimiento acerca del clima regional, como se refleja en la habilidad del metodo para pronosticar. Por ultimo, se

  7. Short-Term Wind Power Interval Forecasting Based on an EEMD-RT-RVM Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haixiang Zang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Accurate short-term wind power forecasting is important for improving the security and economic success of power grids. Existing wind power forecasting methods are mostly types of deterministic point forecasting. Deterministic point forecasting is vulnerable to forecasting errors and cannot effectively deal with the random nature of wind power. In order to solve the above problems, we propose a short-term wind power interval forecasting model based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD, runs test (RT, and relevance vector machine (RVM. First, in order to reduce the complexity of data, the original wind power sequence is decomposed into a plurality of intrinsic mode function (IMF components and residual (RES component by using EEMD. Next, we use the RT method to reconstruct the components and obtain three new components characterized by the fine-to-coarse order. Finally, we obtain the overall forecasting results (with preestablished confidence levels by superimposing the forecasting results of each new component. Our results show that, compared with existing methods, our proposed short-term interval forecasting method has less forecasting errors, narrower interval widths, and larger interval coverage percentages. Ultimately, our forecasting model is more suitable for engineering applications and other forecasting methods for new energy.

  8. Wind and load forecast error model for multiple geographically distributed forecasts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Makarov, Yuri V.; Reyes-Spindola, Jorge F.; Samaan, Nader; Diao, Ruisheng; Hafen, Ryan P. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA (United States)

    2010-07-01

    The impact of wind and load forecast errors on power grid operations is frequently evaluated by conducting multi-variant studies, where these errors are simulated repeatedly as random processes based on their known statistical characteristics. To simulate these errors correctly, we need to reflect their distributions (which do not necessarily follow a known distribution law), standard deviations. auto- and cross-correlations. For instance, load and wind forecast errors can be closely correlated in different zones of the system. This paper introduces a new methodology for generating multiple cross-correlated random processes to produce forecast error time-domain curves based on a transition probability matrix computed from an empirical error distribution function. The matrix will be used to generate new error time series with statistical features similar to observed errors. We present the derivation of the method and some experimental results obtained by generating new error forecasts together with their statistics. (orig.)

  9. Evaluating the Effectiveness of DART® Buoy Networks Based on Forecast Accuracy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Percival, Donald B.; Denbo, Donald W.; Gica, Edison; Huang, Paul Y.; Mofjeld, Harold O.; Spillane, Michael C.; Titov, Vasily V.

    2018-03-01

    A performance measure for a DART® tsunami buoy network has been developed. DART® buoys are used to detect tsunamis, but the full potential of the data they collect is realized through accurate forecasts of inundations caused by the tsunamis. The performance measure assesses how well the network achieves its full potential through a statistical analysis of simulated forecasts of wave amplitudes outside an impact site and a consideration of how much the forecasts are degraded in accuracy when one or more buoys are inoperative. The analysis uses simulated tsunami amplitude time series collected at each buoy from selected source segments in the Short-term Inundation Forecast for Tsunamis database and involves a set for 1000 forecasts for each buoy/segment pair at sites just offshore of selected impact communities. Random error-producing scatter in the time series is induced by uncertainties in the source location, addition of real oceanic noise, and imperfect tidal removal. Comparison with an error-free standard leads to root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) for DART® buoys located near a subduction zone. The RMSEs indicate which buoy provides the best forecast (lowest RMSE) for sections of the zone, under a warning-time constraint for the forecasts of 3 h. The analysis also shows how the forecasts are degraded (larger minimum RMSE among the remaining buoys) when one or more buoys become inoperative. The RMSEs provide a way to assess array augmentation or redesign such as moving buoys to more optimal locations. Examples are shown for buoys off the Aleutian Islands and off the West Coast of South America for impact sites at Hilo HI and along the US West Coast (Crescent City CA and Port San Luis CA, USA). A simple measure (coded green, yellow or red) of the current status of the network's ability to deliver accurate forecasts is proposed to flag the urgency of buoy repair.

  10. Evaluating the Effectiveness of DART® Buoy Networks Based on Forecast Accuracy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Percival, Donald B.; Denbo, Donald W.; Gica, Edison; Huang, Paul Y.; Mofjeld, Harold O.; Spillane, Michael C.; Titov, Vasily V.

    2018-04-01

    A performance measure for a DART® tsunami buoy network has been developed. DART® buoys are used to detect tsunamis, but the full potential of the data they collect is realized through accurate forecasts of inundations caused by the tsunamis. The performance measure assesses how well the network achieves its full potential through a statistical analysis of simulated forecasts of wave amplitudes outside an impact site and a consideration of how much the forecasts are degraded in accuracy when one or more buoys are inoperative. The analysis uses simulated tsunami amplitude time series collected at each buoy from selected source segments in the Short-term Inundation Forecast for Tsunamis database and involves a set for 1000 forecasts for each buoy/segment pair at sites just offshore of selected impact communities. Random error-producing scatter in the time series is induced by uncertainties in the source location, addition of real oceanic noise, and imperfect tidal removal. Comparison with an error-free standard leads to root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) for DART® buoys located near a subduction zone. The RMSEs indicate which buoy provides the best forecast (lowest RMSE) for sections of the zone, under a warning-time constraint for the forecasts of 3 h. The analysis also shows how the forecasts are degraded (larger minimum RMSE among the remaining buoys) when one or more buoys become inoperative. The RMSEs provide a way to assess array augmentation or redesign such as moving buoys to more optimal locations. Examples are shown for buoys off the Aleutian Islands and off the West Coast of South America for impact sites at Hilo HI and along the US West Coast (Crescent City CA and Port San Luis CA, USA). A simple measure (coded green, yellow or red) of the current status of the network's ability to deliver accurate forecasts is proposed to flag the urgency of buoy repair.

  11. A real-time evaluation and demonstration of strategies for 'Over-The-Loop' ensemble streamflow forecasting in US watersheds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Andy; Clark, Elizabeth; Mendoza, Pablo; Nijssen, Bart; Newman, Andy; Clark, Martyn; Nowak, Kenneth; Arnold, Jeffrey

    2017-04-01

    Many if not most national operational streamflow prediction systems rely on a forecaster-in-the-loop approach that require the hands-on-effort of an experienced human forecaster. This approach evolved from the need to correct for long-standing deficiencies in the models and datasets used in forecasting, and the practice often leads to skillful flow predictions despite the use of relatively simple, conceptual models. Yet the 'in-the-loop' forecast process is not reproducible, which limits opportunities to assess and incorporate new techniques systematically, and the effort required to make forecasts in this way is an obstacle to expanding forecast services - e.g., though adding new forecast locations or more frequent forecast updates, running more complex models, or producing forecast and hindcasts that can support verification. In the last decade, the hydrologic forecasting community has begun develop more centralized, 'over-the-loop' systems. The quality of these new forecast products will depend on their ability to leverage research in areas including earth system modeling, parameter estimation, data assimilation, statistical post-processing, weather and climate prediction, verification, and uncertainty estimation through the use of ensembles. Currently, many national operational streamflow forecasting and water management communities have little experience with the strengths and weaknesses of over-the-loop approaches, even as such systems are beginning to be deployed operationally in centers such as ECMWF. There is thus a need both to evaluate these forecasting advances and to demonstrate their potential in a public arena, raising awareness in forecast user communities and development programs alike. To address this need, the US National Center for Atmospheric Research is collaborating with the University of Washington, the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, using the NCAR 'System for Hydromet Analysis Research and Prediction Applications

  12. A Point System to Forecast Hepatocellular Carcinoma Risk Before and After Treatment Among Persons with Chronic Hepatitis C.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xing, Jian; Spradling, Philip R; Moorman, Anne C; Holmberg, Scott D; Teshale, Eyasu H; Rupp, Loralee B; Gordon, Stuart C; Lu, Mei; Boscarino, Joseph A; Schmidt, Mark A; Trinacty, Connie M; Xu, Fujie

    2017-11-01

    Risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may be difficult to determine in the clinical setting. Develop a scoring system to forecast HCC risk among patients with chronic hepatitis C. Using data from the Chronic Hepatitis Cohort Study collected during 2005-2014, we derived HCC risk scores for males and females using an extended Cox model with aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) as a time-dependent variables and mean Kaplan-Meier survival functions from patient data at two study sites, and used data collected at two separate sites for external validation. For model calibration, we used the Greenwood-Nam-D'Agostino goodness-of-fit statistic to examine differences between predicted and observed risk. Of 12,469 patients (1628 with a history of sustained viral response [SVR]), 504 developed HCC; median follow-up was 6 years. Final predictors in the model included age, alcohol abuse, interferon-based treatment response, and APRI. Point values, ranging from -3 to 14 (males) and -3 to 12 (females), were established using hazard ratios of the predictors aligned with 1-, 3-, and 5-year Kaplan-Meier survival probabilities of HCC. Discriminatory capacity was high (c-index 0.82 males and 0.84 females) and external calibration demonstrated no differences between predicted and observed HCC risk for 1-, 3-, and 5-year forecasts among males (all p values >0.97) and for 3- and 5-year risk among females (all p values >0.87). This scoring system, based on age, alcohol abuse history, treatment response, and APRI, can be used to forecast up to a 5-year risk of HCC among hepatitis C patients before and after SVR.

  13. Engaging Earth- and Environmental-Science Undergraduates Through Weather Discussions and an eLearning Weather Forecasting Contest

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schultz, David M.; Anderson, Stuart; Seo-Zindy, Ryo

    2013-06-01

    For students who major in meteorology, engaging in weather forecasting can motivate learning, develop critical-thinking skills, improve their written communication, and yield better forecasts. Whether such advances apply to students who are not meteorology majors has been less demonstrated. To test this idea, a weather discussion and an eLearning weather forecasting contest were devised for a meteorology course taken by third-year undergraduate earth- and environmental-science students. The discussion consisted of using the recent, present, and future weather to amplify the topics of the week's lectures. Then, students forecasted the next day's high temperature and the probability of precipitation for Woodford, the closest official observing site to Manchester, UK. The contest ran for 10 weeks, and the students received credit for participation. The top students at the end of the contest received bonus points on their final grade. A Web-based forecast contest application was developed to register the students, receive their forecasts, and calculate weekly standings. Students who were successful in the forecast contest were not necessarily those who achieved the highest scores on the tests, demonstrating that the contest was possibly testing different skills than traditional learning. Student evaluations indicate that the weather discussion and contest were reasonably successful in engaging students to learn about the weather outside of the classroom, synthesize their knowledge from the lectures, and improve their practical understanding of the weather. Therefore, students taking a meteorology class, but not majoring in meteorology, can derive academic benefits from weather discussions and forecast contests. Nevertheless, student evaluations also indicate that better integration of the lectures, weather discussions, and the forecasting contests is necessary.

  14. Wind forecasting for grid code compliance

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vanitha, V.; Kishore, S.R.N. [Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Univ.. Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Coimbatore (India)

    2012-07-01

    This work explores Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS) to forecast the average hourly wind speed. To determine the characteristics of ANFIS that best suited the target wind speed forecasting system, several ANFIS models were trained, tested and compared. Different types and number of inputs, training and checking sizes, type and number of membership functions and techniques to generate the initial (FIS) were analyzed. Comparisons with other forecasting methods were analyzed the models were given wind speed, direction and air pressure as inputs having the best forecasting accuracy. SCADA system is utilized to obtain the wind speed to the forecasting system in the host computer where ANFIS is present. The SCADA is located in the central room, the substation of the wind farm, or even at a remote off site point. The data obtained from the site is plotted at every instant and the predicted wind speed is displayed and also exported to the excel sheet which will be sent/e-mailed in the form of Graphs and excel sheets to the operator, State load dispatch centre (SLDC) and to the customer. (Author)

  15. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROBABLY-GEOGRAPHICAL FORECAST METHOD FOR DANGEROUS WEATHER PHENOMENA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena S. Popova

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a scheme method of probably-geographical forecast for dangerous weather phenomena. Discuss two general realization stages of this method. Emphasize that developing method is response to actual questions of modern weather forecast and it’s appropriate phenomena: forecast is carried out for specific point in space and appropriate moment of time.

  16. Communicating uncertainty in hydrological forecasts: mission impossible?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramos, Maria-Helena; Mathevet, Thibault; Thielen, Jutta; Pappenberger, Florian

    2010-05-01

    Cascading uncertainty in meteo-hydrological modelling chains for forecasting and integrated flood risk assessment is an essential step to improve the quality of hydrological forecasts. Although the best methodology to quantify the total predictive uncertainty in hydrology is still debated, there is a common agreement that one must avoid uncertainty misrepresentation and miscommunication, as well as misinterpretation of information by users. Several recent studies point out that uncertainty, when properly explained and defined, is no longer unwelcome among emergence response organizations, users of flood risk information and the general public. However, efficient communication of uncertain hydro-meteorological forecasts is far from being a resolved issue. This study focuses on the interpretation and communication of uncertain hydrological forecasts based on (uncertain) meteorological forecasts and (uncertain) rainfall-runoff modelling approaches to decision-makers such as operational hydrologists and water managers in charge of flood warning and scenario-based reservoir operation. An overview of the typical flow of uncertainties and risk-based decisions in hydrological forecasting systems is presented. The challenges related to the extraction of meaningful information from probabilistic forecasts and the test of its usefulness in assisting operational flood forecasting are illustrated with the help of two case-studies: 1) a study on the use and communication of probabilistic flood forecasting within the European Flood Alert System; 2) a case-study on the use of probabilistic forecasts by operational forecasters from the hydroelectricity company EDF in France. These examples show that attention must be paid to initiatives that promote or reinforce the active participation of expert forecasters in the forecasting chain. The practice of face-to-face forecast briefings, focusing on sharing how forecasters interpret, describe and perceive the model output forecasted

  17. Evaluation of the product ratio coherent model in forecasting mortality rates and life expectancy at births by States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shair, Syazreen Niza; Yusof, Aida Yuzi; Asmuni, Nurin Haniah

    2017-05-01

    Coherent mortality forecasting models have recently received increasing attention particularly in their application to sub-populations. The advantage of coherent models over independent models is the ability to forecast a non-divergent mortality for two or more sub-populations. One of the coherent models was recently developed by [1] known as the product-ratio model. This model is an extension version of the functional independent model from [2]. The product-ratio model has been applied in a developed country, Australia [1] and has been extended in a developing nation, Malaysia [3]. While [3] accounted for coherency of mortality rates between gender and ethnic group, the coherency between states in Malaysia has never been explored. This paper will forecast the mortality rates of Malaysian sub-populations according to states using the product ratio coherent model and its independent version— the functional independent model. The forecast accuracies of two different models are evaluated using the out-of-sample error measurements— the mean absolute forecast error (MAFE) for age-specific death rates and the mean forecast error (MFE) for the life expectancy at birth. We employ Malaysian mortality time series data from 1991 to 2014, segregated by age, gender and states.

  18. Forecasting Canadian nuclear power station construction costs

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Keng, C.W.K.

    1985-01-01

    Because of the huge volume of capital required to construct a modern electric power generating station, investment decisions have to be made with as complete an understanding of the consequences of the decision as possible. This understanding must be provided by the evaluation of future situations. A key consideration in an evaluation is the financial component. This paper attempts to use an econometric method to forecast the construction costs escalation of a standard Canadian nuclear generating station (NGS). A brief review of the history of Canadian nuclear electric power is provided. The major components of the construction costs of a Canadian NGS are studied and summarized. A database is built and indexes are prepared. Based on these indexes, an econometric forecasting model is constructed using an apparently new econometric methodology of forecasting modelling. Forecasts for a period of 40 years are generated and applications (such as alternative scenario forecasts and range forecasts) to uncertainty assessment and/or decision-making are demonstrated. The indexes, the model, and the forecasts and their applications, to the best of the author's knowledge, are the first for Canadian NGS constructions. (author)

  19. Evaluation of ensemble precipitation forecasts generated through post-processing in a Canadian catchment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jha, Sanjeev K.; Shrestha, Durga L.; Stadnyk, Tricia A.; Coulibaly, Paulin

    2018-03-01

    Flooding in Canada is often caused by heavy rainfall during the snowmelt period. Hydrologic forecast centers rely on precipitation forecasts obtained from numerical weather prediction (NWP) models to enforce hydrological models for streamflow forecasting. The uncertainties in raw quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) are enhanced by physiography and orography effects over a diverse landscape, particularly in the western catchments of Canada. A Bayesian post-processing approach called rainfall post-processing (RPP), developed in Australia (Robertson et al., 2013; Shrestha et al., 2015), has been applied to assess its forecast performance in a Canadian catchment. Raw QPFs obtained from two sources, Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS) Reforecast 2 project, from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and Global Deterministic Forecast System (GDPS), from Environment and Climate Change Canada, are used in this study. The study period from January 2013 to December 2015 covered a major flood event in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Post-processed results show that the RPP is able to remove the bias and reduce the errors of both GEFS and GDPS forecasts. Ensembles generated from the RPP reliably quantify the forecast uncertainty.

  20. A two-stage method of quantitative flood risk analysis for reservoir real-time operation using ensemble-based hydrologic forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, P.

    2013-12-01

    Quantitative analysis of the risk for reservoir real-time operation is a hard task owing to the difficulty of accurate description of inflow uncertainties. The ensemble-based hydrologic forecasts directly depict the inflows not only the marginal distributions but also their persistence via scenarios. This motivates us to analyze the reservoir real-time operating risk with ensemble-based hydrologic forecasts as inputs. A method is developed by using the forecast horizon point to divide the future time into two stages, the forecast lead-time and the unpredicted time. The risk within the forecast lead-time is computed based on counting the failure number of forecast scenarios, and the risk in the unpredicted time is estimated using reservoir routing with the design floods and the reservoir water levels of forecast horizon point. As a result, a two-stage risk analysis method is set up to quantify the entire flood risks by defining the ratio of the number of scenarios that excessive the critical value to the total number of scenarios. The China's Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) is selected as a case study, where the parameter and precipitation uncertainties are implemented to produce ensemble-based hydrologic forecasts. The Bayesian inference, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, is used to account for the parameter uncertainty. Two reservoir operation schemes, the real operated and scenario optimization, are evaluated for the flood risks and hydropower profits analysis. With the 2010 flood, it is found that the improvement of the hydrologic forecast accuracy is unnecessary to decrease the reservoir real-time operation risk, and most risks are from the forecast lead-time. It is therefore valuable to decrease the avarice of ensemble-based hydrologic forecasts with less bias for a reservoir operational purpose.

  1. Structuring Process Evaluation to Forecast Use and Sustainability of an Intervention: Theory and Data From the Efficacy Trial for Lunch Is in the Bag.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts-Gray, Cindy; Sweitzer, Sara J; Ranjit, Nalini; Potratz, Christa; Rood, Magdalena; Romo-Palafox, Maria Jose; Byrd-Williams, Courtney E; Briley, Margaret E; Hoelscher, Deanna M

    2017-08-01

    A cluster-randomized trial at 30 early care and education centers (Intervention = 15, waitlist Control = 15) showed the Lunch Is in the Bag intervention increased parents' packing of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in their preschool children's bag lunches (parent-child dyads = 351 Intervention, 282 Control). To examine the utility of structuring the trial's process evaluation to forecast use, sustainability, and readiness of the intervention for wider dissemination and implementation. Pretrial, the research team simulated user experience to forecast use of the intervention. Multiattribute evaluation of user experience measured during the trial assessed use and sustainability of the intervention. Thematic analysis of posttrial interviews with users evaluated sustained use and readiness for wider dissemination. Moderate use was forecast by the research team. Multiattribute evaluation of activity logs, surveys, and observations during the trial indicated use consistent with the forecast except that prevalence of parents reading the newsletters was greater (83% vs. 50%) and hearing their children talk about the classroom was less (4% vs. 50%) than forecast. Early care and education center-level likelihood of sustained use was projected to be near zero. Posttrial interviews indicated use was sustained at zero centers. Structuring the efficacy trial's process evaluation as a progression of assessments of user experience produced generally accurate forecasts of use and sustainability of the intervention at the trial sites. This approach can assist interpretation of trial outcomes, aid decisions about dissemination of the intervention, and contribute to translational science for improving health.

  2. Evaluation of Optimized WRF Precipitation Forecast over a Complex Topography Region during Flood Season

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuan Li

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF model has been utilized to generate quantitative precipitation forecasts with higher spatial and temporal resolutions. However, factors including horizontal resolution, domain size, and the physical parameterization scheme have a strong impact on the dynamic downscaling ability of the WRF model. In this study, the influence of these factors has been analyzed in precipitation forecasting for the Xijiang Basin, southern China—a region with complex topography. The results indicate that higher horizontal resolutions always result in higher Critical Success Indexes (CSI, but higher biases as well. Meanwhile, the precipitation forecast skills are also influenced by the combination of microphysics parameterization scheme and cumulus convective parameterization scheme. On the basis of these results, an optimized configuration of the WRF model is built in which the horizontal resolution is 10 km, the microphysics parameterization is the Lin scheme, and the cumulus convective parameterization is the Betts–Miller–Janjic scheme. This configuration is then evaluated by simulating the daily weather during the 2013–2014 flood season. The high Critical Success Index scores and low biases at various thresholds and lead times confirm the high accuracy of the optimized WRF model configuration for Xijiang Basin. However, the performance of the WRF model varies from different sub-basins due to the complexity of the mesoscale convective system (MCS over this region.

  3. ECMWF Extreme Forecast Index for water vapor transport: A forecast tool for atmospheric rivers and extreme precipitation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lavers, David A.; Pappenberger, Florian; Richardson, David S.; Zsoter, Ervin

    2016-11-01

    In winter, heavy precipitation and floods along the west coasts of midlatitude continents are largely caused by intense water vapor transport (integrated vapor transport (IVT)) within the atmospheric river of extratropical cyclones. This study builds on previous findings that showed that forecasts of IVT have higher predictability than precipitation, by applying and evaluating the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Extreme Forecast Index (EFI) for IVT in ensemble forecasts during three winters across Europe. We show that the IVT EFI is more able (than the precipitation EFI) to capture extreme precipitation in forecast week 2 during forecasts initialized in a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phase; conversely, the precipitation EFI is better during the negative NAO phase and at shorter leads. An IVT EFI example for storm Desmond in December 2015 highlights its potential to identify upcoming hydrometeorological extremes, which may prove useful to the user and forecasting communities.

  4. Ontario demand forecast from January 2004 to December 2013

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2003-01-01

    This document examined the demand forecast for electricity on the Independent Market Operator (IMO)-controlled grid in Ontario for the period 2004-2013. It serves as an assessment tool to determine whether existing and proposed generation and transmission facilities in the province will be sufficient to meet future electricity needs. Changes in methodology have been made to allow for an hourly peak versus the previously reported 20-minute peak value. Actual data through to the end of October 2002 was used to re-estimate energy demand. Compared to other developed countries, the outlook for the Canadian economy is optimistic. In addition, the economic forecast is better than that which formed the basis of the last ten-year forecast. Energy demand in the median growth scenario is increasing at an annual rate of 1.1 per cent rather than 0.9 per cent for the forecasted period of 2003-2012. The combination of a higher growth rate and a higher starting point results in a 2010 forecast of 168 TWh. It is expected that peak demand will grow faster than in the previous forecast. Summer peak demand averaging an annual growth of 1.3 per cent is forecasted for the period 2003-2012, with winter peak demand averaging a growth of 0.8 per cent. Under normal weather conditions, the electricity system is expected to peak in the summer of 2005 due to the continued demand for cooling load. However, under an extreme weather scenario, the system is already summer peaking. The improved economic outlook and higher starting point resulted in a higher forecast for energy. The electricity system is expected to winter peak during the first years of the forecasted period. The heating load is not expected to experience rapid growth in the next few years. 15 tabs., 14 figs

  5. Detecting, categorizing and forecasting large romps in wind farm power output using meteorological observations and WPPT

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cutler, N.; Kay, M.; Jacka, K.

    2007-01-01

    The Wind Power Prediction Tool (WPPT) has been installed in Australia for the first time, to forecast the power output from the 65MW Roaring 40s Renewable Energy P/L Woolnorth Bluff Point wind form. This article analyses the general performance of WPPT as well as its performance during large romps...... (swings) in power output. In addition to this, detected large ramps are studied in detail and categorized. WPPT combines wind speed and direction forecasts from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology regional numerical weather prediction model, MesoLAPS, with real-time wind power observations to make hourly...... forecasts of the wind farm power output. The general performances of MesoLAPS and WPPTore evaluated over I year using the root mean square error (RMSE). The errors are significantly lower than for basic benchmark forecasts but higher than for many other WPPT installations, where the site conditions...

  6. Skill forecasting from ensemble predictions of wind power

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pinson, Pierre; Nielsen, Henrik Aalborg; Madsen, Henrik

    2009-01-01

    Optimal management and trading of wind generation calls for the providing of uncertainty estimates along with the commonly provided short-term wind power point predictions. Alternative approaches for the use of probabilistic forecasting are introduced. More precisely, focus is given to prediction...... risk indices aiming to give a comprehensive signal on the expected level of forecast uncertainty. Ensemble predictions of wind generation are used as input. A proposal for the definition of prediction risk indices is given. Such skill forecasts are based on the spread of ensemble forecasts (i.e. a set...... of alternative scenarios for the coming period) for a single prediction horizon or over a took-ahead period. It is shown on the test case of a Danish offshore wind farm how these prediction risk indices may be related to several levels of forecast uncertainty (and potential energy imbalances). Wind power...

  7. Evaluation of ensemble precipitation forecasts generated through post-processing in a Canadian catchment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. K. Jha

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Flooding in Canada is often caused by heavy rainfall during the snowmelt period. Hydrologic forecast centers rely on precipitation forecasts obtained from numerical weather prediction (NWP models to enforce hydrological models for streamflow forecasting. The uncertainties in raw quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs are enhanced by physiography and orography effects over a diverse landscape, particularly in the western catchments of Canada. A Bayesian post-processing approach called rainfall post-processing (RPP, developed in Australia (Robertson et al., 2013; Shrestha et al., 2015, has been applied to assess its forecast performance in a Canadian catchment. Raw QPFs obtained from two sources, Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS Reforecast 2 project, from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and Global Deterministic Forecast System (GDPS, from Environment and Climate Change Canada, are used in this study. The study period from January 2013 to December 2015 covered a major flood event in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Post-processed results show that the RPP is able to remove the bias and reduce the errors of both GEFS and GDPS forecasts. Ensembles generated from the RPP reliably quantify the forecast uncertainty.

  8. Forecasting methodologies for Ganoderma spore concentration using combined statistical approaches and model evaluations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadyś, Magdalena; Skjøth, Carsten Ambelas; Kennedy, Roy

    2016-04-01

    High concentration levels of Ganoderma spp. spores were observed in Worcester, UK, during 2006-2010. These basidiospores are known to cause sensitization due to the allergen content and their small dimensions. This enables them to penetrate the lower part of the respiratory tract in humans. Establishment of a link between occurring symptoms of sensitization to Ganoderma spp. and other basidiospores is challenging due to lack of information regarding spore concentration in the air. Hence, aerobiological monitoring should be conducted, and if possible extended with the construction of forecast models. Daily mean concentration of allergenic Ganoderma spp. spores in the atmosphere of Worcester was measured using 7-day volumetric spore sampler through five consecutive years. The relationships between the presence of spores in the air and the weather parameters were examined. Forecast models were constructed for Ganoderma spp. spores using advanced statistical techniques, i.e. multivariate regression trees and artificial neural networks. Dew point temperature along with maximum temperature was the most important factor influencing the presence of spores in the air of Worcester. Based on these two major factors and several others of lesser importance, thresholds for certain levels of fungal spore concentration, i.e. low (0-49 s m-3), moderate (50-99 s m-3), high (100-149 s m-3) and very high (150 < n s m-3), could be designated. Despite some deviation in results obtained by artificial neural networks, authors have achieved a forecasting model, which was accurate (correlation between observed and predicted values varied from r s = 0.57 to r s = 0.68).

  9. Evaluation of medium-range ensemble flood forecasting based on calibration strategies and ensemble methods in Lanjiang Basin, Southeast China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Li; Gao, Chao; Xuan, Weidong; Xu, Yue-Ping

    2017-11-01

    Ensemble flood forecasts by hydrological models using numerical weather prediction products as forcing data are becoming more commonly used in operational flood forecasting applications. In this study, a hydrological ensemble flood forecasting system comprised of an automatically calibrated Variable Infiltration Capacity model and quantitative precipitation forecasts from TIGGE dataset is constructed for Lanjiang Basin, Southeast China. The impacts of calibration strategies and ensemble methods on the performance of the system are then evaluated. The hydrological model is optimized by the parallel programmed ε-NSGA II multi-objective algorithm. According to the solutions by ε-NSGA II, two differently parameterized models are determined to simulate daily flows and peak flows at each of the three hydrological stations. Then a simple yet effective modular approach is proposed to combine these daily and peak flows at the same station into one composite series. Five ensemble methods and various evaluation metrics are adopted. The results show that ε-NSGA II can provide an objective determination on parameter estimation, and the parallel program permits a more efficient simulation. It is also demonstrated that the forecasts from ECMWF have more favorable skill scores than other Ensemble Prediction Systems. The multimodel ensembles have advantages over all the single model ensembles and the multimodel methods weighted on members and skill scores outperform other methods. Furthermore, the overall performance at three stations can be satisfactory up to ten days, however the hydrological errors can degrade the skill score by approximately 2 days, and the influence persists until a lead time of 10 days with a weakening trend. With respect to peak flows selected by the Peaks Over Threshold approach, the ensemble means from single models or multimodels are generally underestimated, indicating that the ensemble mean can bring overall improvement in forecasting of flows. For

  10. Forecasting Cryptocurrencies Financial Time Series

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Catania, Leopoldo; Grassi, Stefano; Ravazzolo, Francesco

    2018-01-01

    This paper studies the predictability of cryptocurrencies time series. We compare several alternative univariate and multivariate models in point and density forecasting of four of the most capitalized series: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple and Ethereum. We apply a set of crypto–predictors and rely...

  11. Economic evaluation of short-term wind power forecast in ERCOT. Preliminary results

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Orwig, Kirsten D.; Hodge, Bri-Mathias; Brinkman, Greg; Ela, Erik; Milligan, Michael [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Banunarayanan, Venkat; Nasir, Saleh [ICF International, Fairfax, VA (United States); Freedman, Jeff [AWS Truepower, Albany, NY (United States)

    2012-07-01

    A number of wind energy integration studies have investigated the monetary value of using day-ahead wind power forecasts for grid operation decisions. Historically, these studies have shown that large cost savings could be gained by grid operators implementing the forecasts in their system operations. To date, none of these studies have investigated the value of shorter term (0- to 6-h ahead) wind power forecasts. In 2010, the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partnered to form the Wind Forecasting Improvement Project (WFIP) to fund improvements in short-term wind forecasts and determine the economic value of these improvements to grid operators. In this work, we discuss the preliminary results of the economic benefit analysis portion of the WFIP for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The improvements seen in the wind forecasts are examined and the economic results of a production cost model simulation are analyzed. (orig.)

  12. Parametric analysis of parameters for electrical-load forecasting using artificial neural networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerber, William J.; Gonzalez, Avelino J.; Georgiopoulos, Michael

    1997-04-01

    Accurate total system electrical load forecasting is a necessary part of resource management for power generation companies. The better the hourly load forecast, the more closely the power generation assets of the company can be configured to minimize the cost. Automating this process is a profitable goal and neural networks should provide an excellent means of doing the automation. However, prior to developing such a system, the optimal set of input parameters must be determined. The approach of this research was to determine what those inputs should be through a parametric study of potentially good inputs. Input parameters tested were ambient temperature, total electrical load, the day of the week, humidity, dew point temperature, daylight savings time, length of daylight, season, forecast light index and forecast wind velocity. For testing, a limited number of temperatures and total electrical loads were used as a basic reference input parameter set. Most parameters showed some forecasting improvement when added individually to the basic parameter set. Significantly, major improvements were exhibited with the day of the week, dew point temperatures, additional temperatures and loads, forecast light index and forecast wind velocity.

  13. An Overview of Short-term Statistical Forecasting Methods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elias, Russell J.; Montgomery, Douglas C.; Kulahci, Murat

    2006-01-01

    An overview of statistical forecasting methodology is given, focusing on techniques appropriate to short- and medium-term forecasts. Topics include basic definitions and terminology, smoothing methods, ARIMA models, regression methods, dynamic regression models, and transfer functions. Techniques...... for evaluating and monitoring forecast performance are also summarized....

  14. Evaluation of a multiple linear regression model and SARIMA model in forecasting heat demand for district heating system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fang, Tingting; Lahdelma, Risto

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • Social factor is considered for the linear regression models besides weather file. • Simultaneously optimize all the coefficients for linear regression models. • SARIMA combined with linear regression is used to forecast the heat demand. • The accuracy for both linear regression and time series models are evaluated. - Abstract: Forecasting heat demand is necessary for production and operation planning of district heating (DH) systems. In this study we first propose a simple regression model where the hourly outdoor temperature and wind speed forecast the heat demand. Weekly rhythm of heat consumption as a social component is added to the model to significantly improve the accuracy. The other type of model is the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model with exogenous variables as a combination to take weather factors, and the historical heat consumption data as depending variables. One outstanding advantage of the model is that it peruses the high accuracy for both long-term and short-term forecast by considering both exogenous factors and time series. The forecasting performance of both linear regression models and time series model are evaluated based on real-life heat demand data for the city of Espoo in Finland by out-of-sample tests for the last 20 full weeks of the year. The results indicate that the proposed linear regression model (T168h) using 168-h demand pattern with midweek holidays classified as Saturdays or Sundays gives the highest accuracy and strong robustness among all the tested models based on the tested forecasting horizon and corresponding data. Considering the parsimony of the input, the ease of use and the high accuracy, the proposed T168h model is the best in practice. The heat demand forecasting model can also be developed for individual buildings if automated meter reading customer measurements are available. This would allow forecasting the heat demand based on more accurate heat consumption

  15. Evaluating the Contribution of NASA Remotely-Sensed Data Sets on a Convection-Allowing Forecast Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zavodsky, Bradley T.; Case, Jonathan L.; Molthan, Andrew L.

    2012-01-01

    The Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center is a collaborative partnership between NASA and operational forecasting partners, including a number of National Weather Service forecast offices. SPoRT provides real-time NASA products and capabilities to help its partners address specific operational forecast challenges. One challenge that forecasters face is using guidance from local and regional deterministic numerical models configured at convection-allowing resolution to help assess a variety of mesoscale/convective-scale phenomena such as sea-breezes, local wind circulations, and mesoscale convective weather potential on a given day. While guidance from convection-allowing models has proven valuable in many circumstances, the potential exists for model improvements by incorporating more representative land-water surface datasets, and by assimilating retrieved temperature and moisture profiles from hyper-spectral sounders. In order to help increase the accuracy of deterministic convection-allowing models, SPoRT produces real-time, 4-km CONUS forecasts using a configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (hereafter SPoRT-WRF) that includes unique NASA products and capabilities including 4-km resolution soil initialization data from the Land Information System (LIS), 2-km resolution SPoRT SST composites over oceans and large water bodies, high-resolution real-time Green Vegetation Fraction (GVF) composites derived from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, and retrieved temperature and moisture profiles from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI). NCAR's Model Evaluation Tools (MET) verification package is used to generate statistics of model performance compared to in situ observations and rainfall analyses for three months during the summer of 2012 (June-August). Detailed analyses of specific severe weather outbreaks during the summer

  16. An evaluation of inflation expectations in Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barış Soybilgen

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Expectations of inflation play a critical role in the process of price setting in the market. Central banks closely follow developments in inflation expectations to implement a successful monetary policy. The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT conducts a survey of experts and decision makers in the financial and real sectors to reveal market expectations and predictions of current and future inflation. The survey is conducted every month. This paper examines the accuracy of these survey predictions using forecast evaluation techniques. We focus on both point and sign accuracy of the predictions. Although point predictions from CBRT surveys are compared with those of autoregressive models, sign predictions are evaluated on their value to a user. We also test the predictions for bias. Unlike the empirical evidence from other economies, our results show that autoregressive models outperform most of inflation expectations in forecasting inflation. This indicates that inflation expectations have poor point forecast accuracies. However, we show that sign predictions for all inflation expectations have value to a user.

  17. Toward Seasonal Forecasting of Global Droughts: Evaluation over USA and Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Eric; Yuan, Xing; Roundy, Joshua; Sheffield, Justin; Pan, Ming

    2013-04-01

    Extreme hydrologic events in the form of droughts are significant sources of social and economic damage. In the United States according to the National Climatic Data Center, the losses from drought exceed US210 billion during 1980-2011, and account for about 24% of all losses from major weather disasters. Internationally, especially for the developing world, drought has had devastating impacts on local populations through food insecurity and famine. Providing reliable drought forecasts with sufficient early warning will help the governments to move from the management of drought crises to the management of drought risk. After working on drought monitoring and forecasting over the USA for over 10 years, the Princeton land surface hydrology group is now developing a global drought monitoring and forecasting system using a dynamical seasonal climate-hydrologic LSM-model (CHM) approach. Currently there is an active debate on the merits of the CHM-based seasonal hydrologic forecasts as compared to Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP). We use NCEP's operational forecast system, the Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) and its previous version CFSv1, to investigate the value of seasonal climate model forecasts by conducting a set of 27-year seasonal hydrologic hindcasts over the USA. Through Bayesian downscaling, climate models have higher squared correlation (R2) and smaller error than ESP for monthly precipitation averaged over major river basins across the USA, and the forecasts conditional on ENSO show further improvements (out to four months) over river basins in the southern USA. All three approaches have plausible predictions of soil moisture drought frequency over central USA out to six months because of strong soil moisture memory, and seasonal climate models provide better results over central and eastern USA. The R2 of drought extent is higher for arid basins and for the forecasts initiated during dry seasons, but significant improvements from CFSv2 occur

  18. On robust forecasting of autoregressive time series under censoring

    OpenAIRE

    Kharin, Y.; Badziahin, I.

    2009-01-01

    Problems of robust statistical forecasting are considered for autoregressive time series observed under distortions generated by interval censoring. Three types of robust forecasting statistics are developed; meansquare risk is evaluated for the developed forecasting statistics. Numerical results are given.

  19. Commercial demand for energy: a disaggregated approach. [Model validation for 1970-1975; forecasting to 2000

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jackson, J.R.; Cohn, S.; Cope, J.; Johnson, W.S.

    1978-04-01

    This report describes the structure and forecasting accuracy of a disaggregated model of commercial energy use recently developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The model forecasts annual commercial energy use by ten building types, five end uses, and four fuel types. Both economic (utilization rate, fuel choice, capital-energy substitution) and technological factors (equipment efficiency, thermal characteristics of buildings) are explicitly represented in the model. Model parameters are derived from engineering and econometric analysis. The model is then validated by simulating commercial energy use over the 1970--1975 time period. The model performs well both with respect to size of forecast error and ability to predict turning points. The model is then used to evaluate the energy-use implications of national commercial buildings standards based on the ASHRAE 90-75 recommendations. 10 figs., 12 tables, 14 refs.

  20. Subscriber Number Forecasting Tool Based on Subscriber Attribute Distribution for Evaluating Improvement Strategies

    OpenAIRE

    Hiramatsu, Ayako; Shono, Yuji; Oiso, Hiroaki; Komoda, Norihisa

    2005-01-01

    In this paper, a subscriber number forecasting tool that evaluates quiz game mobile content improvement strategies is developed. Unsubscription rates depend on such subscriber attributes such as consecutive months, stages, rankings, and so on. In addition, content providers can anticipate change in unsubscription rates for each content improvement strategy. However, subscriber attributes change dynamically. Therefore, a method that deals with dynamic subscriber attribute changes is proposed. ...

  1. Electricity Price Forecasting Based on AOSVR and Outlier Detection

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Zhou Dianmin; Gao Lin; Gao Feng

    2005-01-01

    Electricity price is of the first consideration for all the participants in electric power market and its characteristics are related to both market mechanism and variation in the behaviors of market participants. It is necessary to build a real-time price forecasting model with adaptive capability; and because there are outliers in the price data, they should be detected and filtrated in training the forecasting model by regression method. In view of these points, this paper presents an electricity price forecasting method based on accurate on-line support vector regression (AOSVR) and outlier detection. Numerical testing results show that the method is effective in forecasting the electricity prices in electric power market.

  2. Meteorology and dispersion forecast in nuclear emergency in Argentina

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kunst, Juan J.; Boutet, Luis I.; Jordan, Osvaldo D.; Hernandez, Daniel G.; Guichandut, M.E.; Chiappesoni, H.

    2008-01-01

    The 'Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) (ARN in Spanish)' and the 'National Meteorological Office (NMO) (SMN in Spanish)' of Argentine has been working together on the improvement of both meteorological forecasting and dispersion prediction. In the pre-release phase of a nuclear emergency, it is very important to know the wind direction and the forecast of it, to establish the area, around the installation, where the emergency state is declared and to foresee the modification of this area. Information is also needed about deterministic effects, to begin the evacuation. At this time, meteorological forecast of wind direction and speed, and the real time meteorological information is available in the nuclear power plant (NPP) and in the Nuclear Emergency Control Centre at the ARN headquarters, together with the short-range dose calculation provided by our dispersion code, SEDA. By means of the SEDA code, we can estimate the optimum place to measure the radioactive material concentration in air, needed do to reduce evaluation uncertainties due, among others, to poor knowledge of the source term. The SEDA code allows considering atmospheric condition, and the need to reduced doses of the measuring team in charge of the measurements. For the evaluation in the medium range, we participate in the project IXP, which provides four hours and about 50 kilometres forecast. In the long-range movement of air borne radioactivity, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), whose contact point in Argentina is the SMN, can assist us. We have developed together, with the SMN, a detailed procedure to request assistance from the WMO. In this work, we describe the combined tasks that were carried out with the SMN to define the procedures and the concepts for their application during a real emergency. The results of an application exercise carried out in 2006 are also described. (author)

  3. House Price Forecasts, Forecaster Herding, and the Recent Crisis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stadtmann, Georg; Pierdzioch; Ruelke

    2013-01-01

    We used the Wall Street Journal survey data for the period 2006–2012 to analyze whether forecasts of house prices and housing starts provide evidence of (anti-)herding of forecasters. Forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding) of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from) t......) the consensus forecast. We found that anti-herding is prevalent among forecasters of house prices. We also report that, following the recent crisis, the prevalence of forecaster anti-herding seems to have changed over time....

  4. Operational hydrological forecasting in Bavaria. Part II: Ensemble forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ehret, U.; Vogelbacher, A.; Moritz, K.; Laurent, S.; Meyer, I.; Haag, I.

    2009-04-01

    In part I of this study, the operational flood forecasting system in Bavaria and an approach to identify and quantify forecast uncertainty was introduced. The approach is split into the calculation of an empirical 'overall error' from archived forecasts and the calculation of an empirical 'model error' based on hydrometeorological forecast tests, where rainfall observations were used instead of forecasts. The 'model error' can especially in upstream catchments where forecast uncertainty is strongly dependent on the current predictability of the atrmosphere be superimposed on the spread of a hydrometeorological ensemble forecast. In Bavaria, two meteorological ensemble prediction systems are currently tested for operational use: the 16-member COSMO-LEPS forecast and a poor man's ensemble composed of DWD GME, DWD Cosmo-EU, NCEP GFS, Aladin-Austria, MeteoSwiss Cosmo-7. The determination of the overall forecast uncertainty is dependent on the catchment characteristics: 1. Upstream catchment with high influence of weather forecast a) A hydrological ensemble forecast is calculated using each of the meteorological forecast members as forcing. b) Corresponding to the characteristics of the meteorological ensemble forecast, each resulting forecast hydrograph can be regarded as equally likely. c) The 'model error' distribution, with parameters dependent on hydrological case and lead time, is added to each forecast timestep of each ensemble member d) For each forecast timestep, the overall (i.e. over all 'model error' distribution of each ensemble member) error distribution is calculated e) From this distribution, the uncertainty range on a desired level (here: the 10% and 90% percentile) is extracted and drawn as forecast envelope. f) As the mean or median of an ensemble forecast does not necessarily exhibit meteorologically sound temporal evolution, a single hydrological forecast termed 'lead forecast' is chosen and shown in addition to the uncertainty bounds. This can be

  5. Improving weather forecasts for wind energy applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kay, Merlinde; MacGill, Iain

    2010-08-01

    Weather forecasts play an important role in the energy industry particularly because of the impact of temperature on electrical demand. Power system operation requires that this variable and somewhat unpredictable demand be precisely met at all times and locations from available generation. As wind generation makes up a growing component of electricity supply around the world, it has become increasingly important to be able to provide useful forecasting for this highly variable and uncertain energy resource. Of particular interest are forecasts of weather events that rapidly change wind energy production from one or more wind farms. In this paper we describe work underway to improve the wind forecasts currently available from standard Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) through a bias correction methodology. Our study has used the Australian Bureau of Meteorology MesoLAPS 5 km limited domain model over the Victoria/Tasmania region, providing forecasts for the Woolnorth wind farm, situated in Tasmania, Australia. The accuracy of these forecasts has been investigated, concentrating on the key wind speed ranges 5 - 15 ms-1 and around 25 ms-1. A bias correction methodology was applied to the NWP hourly forecasts to help account for systematic issues such as the NWP grid point not being at the exact location of the wind farm. An additional correction was applied for timing issues by using meteorological data from the wind farm. Results to date show a reduction in spread of forecast error for hour ahead forecasts by as much as half using this double correction methodology - a combination of both bias correction and timing correction.

  6. Improving weather forecasts for wind energy applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kay, Merlinde; MacGill, Iain

    2010-01-01

    Weather forecasts play an important role in the energy industry particularly because of the impact of temperature on electrical demand. Power system operation requires that this variable and somewhat unpredictable demand be precisely met at all times and locations from available generation. As wind generation makes up a growing component of electricity supply around the world, it has become increasingly important to be able to provide useful forecasting for this highly variable and uncertain energy resource. Of particular interest are forecasts of weather events that rapidly change wind energy production from one or more wind farms. In this paper we describe work underway to improve the wind forecasts currently available from standard Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) through a bias correction methodology. Our study has used the Australian Bureau of Meteorology MesoLAPS 5 km limited domain model over the Victoria/Tasmania region, providing forecasts for the Woolnorth wind farm, situated in Tasmania, Australia. The accuracy of these forecasts has been investigated, concentrating on the key wind speed ranges 5 - 15 ms -1 and around 25 ms -1 . A bias correction methodology was applied to the NWP hourly forecasts to help account for systematic issues such as the NWP grid point not being at the exact location of the wind farm. An additional correction was applied for timing issues by using meteorological data from the wind farm. Results to date show a reduction in spread of forecast error for hour ahead forecasts by as much as half using this double correction methodology - a combination of both bias correction and timing correction.

  7. Bayesian flood forecasting methods: A review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Shasha; Coulibaly, Paulin

    2017-08-01

    Over the past few decades, floods have been seen as one of the most common and largely distributed natural disasters in the world. If floods could be accurately forecasted in advance, then their negative impacts could be greatly minimized. It is widely recognized that quantification and reduction of uncertainty associated with the hydrologic forecast is of great importance for flood estimation and rational decision making. Bayesian forecasting system (BFS) offers an ideal theoretic framework for uncertainty quantification that can be developed for probabilistic flood forecasting via any deterministic hydrologic model. It provides suitable theoretical structure, empirically validated models and reasonable analytic-numerical computation method, and can be developed into various Bayesian forecasting approaches. This paper presents a comprehensive review on Bayesian forecasting approaches applied in flood forecasting from 1999 till now. The review starts with an overview of fundamentals of BFS and recent advances in BFS, followed with BFS application in river stage forecasting and real-time flood forecasting, then move to a critical analysis by evaluating advantages and limitations of Bayesian forecasting methods and other predictive uncertainty assessment approaches in flood forecasting, and finally discusses the future research direction in Bayesian flood forecasting. Results show that the Bayesian flood forecasting approach is an effective and advanced way for flood estimation, it considers all sources of uncertainties and produces a predictive distribution of the river stage, river discharge or runoff, thus gives more accurate and reliable flood forecasts. Some emerging Bayesian forecasting methods (e.g. ensemble Bayesian forecasting system, Bayesian multi-model combination) were shown to overcome limitations of single model or fixed model weight and effectively reduce predictive uncertainty. In recent years, various Bayesian flood forecasting approaches have been

  8. House Price Forecasts, Forecaster Herding, and the Recent Crisis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Pierdzioch

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available We used the Wall Street Journal survey data for the period 2006–2012 to analyze whether forecasts of house prices and housing starts provide evidence of (anti-herding of forecasters. Forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from the consensus forecast. We found that anti-herding is prevalent among forecasters of house prices. We also report that, following the recent crisis, the prevalence of forecaster anti-herding seems to have changed over time.

  9. The effects of forecast errors on the merchandising of wind power; Auswirkungen von Prognosefehlern auf die Vermarktung von Windstrom

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Roon, Serafin von

    2012-02-28

    A permanent balance between consumption and generation is essential for a stable supply of electricity. In order to ensure this balance, all relevant load data have to be announced for the following day. Consequently, a day-ahead forecast of the wind power generation is required, which also forms the basis for the sale of the wind power at the wholesale market. The main subject of the study is the short-term power supply, which compensates errors in wind power forecasting for balancing the wind power forecast errors at short notice. These forecast errors effects the revenues and the expenses by selling and buying power in the day-ahead, intraday and balance energy market. These price effects resulting from the forecast errors are derived from an empirical analysis. In a scenario for the year 2020 the potential of conventional power plants to supply power at short notice is evaluated from a technical and economic point of view by a time series analysis and a unit commitment simulation.

  10. Next-generation probabilistic seismicity forecasting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hiemer, S.

    2014-07-01

    novel automated method to investigate the significance of spatial b-value variations. The method incorporates an objective data-driven partitioning scheme, which is based on penalized likelihood estimates. These well-defined criteria avoid the difficult choice of commonly applied spatial mapping parameters, such as grid spacing or size of mapping radii. We construct a seismicity forecast that includes spatial b-value variations and demonstrate our model’s skill and reliability when applied to data from California. All proposed probabilistic seismicity forecasts were subjected to evaluation methods using state of the art algorithms provided by the 'Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability' infrastructure. First, we evaluated the statistical agreement between the forecasted and observed rates of target events in terms of number, space and magnitude. Secondly, we assessed the performance of one forecast relative to another. We find that the forecasts presented in this thesis are reliable and show significant skills with respect to established classical forecasts. These next-generation probabilistic seismicity forecasts can thus provide hazard information that are potentially useful in reducing earthquake losses and enhancing community preparedness and resilience. (author)

  11. Next-generation probabilistic seismicity forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hiemer, S.

    2014-01-01

    novel automated method to investigate the significance of spatial b-value variations. The method incorporates an objective data-driven partitioning scheme, which is based on penalized likelihood estimates. These well-defined criteria avoid the difficult choice of commonly applied spatial mapping parameters, such as grid spacing or size of mapping radii. We construct a seismicity forecast that includes spatial b-value variations and demonstrate our model’s skill and reliability when applied to data from California. All proposed probabilistic seismicity forecasts were subjected to evaluation methods using state of the art algorithms provided by the 'Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability' infrastructure. First, we evaluated the statistical agreement between the forecasted and observed rates of target events in terms of number, space and magnitude. Secondly, we assessed the performance of one forecast relative to another. We find that the forecasts presented in this thesis are reliable and show significant skills with respect to established classical forecasts. These next-generation probabilistic seismicity forecasts can thus provide hazard information that are potentially useful in reducing earthquake losses and enhancing community preparedness and resilience. (author)

  12. Neural network versus classical time series forecasting models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nor, Maria Elena; Safuan, Hamizah Mohd; Shab, Noorzehan Fazahiyah Md; Asrul, Mohd; Abdullah, Affendi; Mohamad, Nurul Asmaa Izzati; Lee, Muhammad Hisyam

    2017-05-01

    Artificial neural network (ANN) has advantage in time series forecasting as it has potential to solve complex forecasting problems. This is because ANN is data driven approach which able to be trained to map past values of a time series. In this study the forecast performance between neural network and classical time series forecasting method namely seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models was being compared by utilizing gold price data. Moreover, the effect of different data preprocessing on the forecast performance of neural network being examined. The forecast accuracy was evaluated using mean absolute deviation, root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error. It was found that ANN produced the most accurate forecast when Box-Cox transformation was used as data preprocessing.

  13. Genetic Algorithms vs. Artificial Neural Networks in Economic Forecasting Process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicolae Morariu

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to describe the implementa-tion of a neural network and a genetic algorithm system in order to forecast certain economic indicators of a free market economy. In a free market economy forecasting process precedes the economic planning (a management function, providing important information for the result of the last process. Forecasting represents a starting point in setting of target for a firm, an organization or even a branch of the economy. Thus, the forecasting method used can influence in a significant mode the evolution of an entity. In the following we will describe the forecasting of an economic indicator using two intelligent systems. The difference between the results obtained by this two systems are described in chapter IV.

  14. Forecasting Public Transit Use by Crowdsensing and Semantic Trajectory Mining: Case Studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ningyu Zhang

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available With the growing development of smart cities, public transit forecasting has begun to attract significant attention. In this paper, we propose an approach for forecasting passenger boarding choices and public transit passenger flow. Our prediction model is based on mining common user behaviors for semantic trajectories and enriching features using knowledge from geographic and weather data. All the experimental data comes from the Ridge Nantong Limited bus company and Alibaba platform which is also open to the public. We evaluate our approach using various data sources, including point of interest (POI, weather condition, and public bus information in Guangzhou to demonstrate its effectiveness. Experimental results show that our proposal performs better than baselines in the prediction of passenger boarding choices and public transit passenger flow.

  15. Synergizing two NWP models to improve hub-height wind speed forecasts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liu, H. [Ortech International, Mississauga, ON (Canada); Taylor, P. [York Univ., Toronto, ON (Canada)

    2010-07-01

    This PowerPoint presentation discussed some of the methods used to optimize hub-height wind speed forecasts. Statistical and physical forecast paradigms were considered. Forecast errors are often dictated by phase error, while refined NWP modelling is limited by data availability. A nested meso-scale NWP model was combined with a physical model to predict wind and power forecasts. Maps of data sources were included as well as equations used to derive predictions. Data from meteorological masts located near the Great Lakes were used to demonstrate the model. The results were compared with other modelling prediction methods. Forecasts obtained using the modelling approach can help operators in scheduling and trading procedures. Further research is being conducted to determine if the model can be used to improve ramp forecasts. tabs., figs.

  16. Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecast Rodeo

    Science.gov (United States)

    Webb, R. S.; Nowak, K.; Cifelli, R.; Brekke, L. D.

    2017-12-01

    The Bureau of Reclamation, as the largest water wholesaler and the second largest producer of hydropower in the United States, benefits from skillful forecasts of future water availability. Researchers, water managers from local, regional, and federal agencies, and groups such as the Western States Water Council agree that improved precipitation and temperature forecast information at the sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescale is an area with significant potential benefit to water management. In response, and recognizing NOAA's leadership in forecasting, Reclamation has partnered with NOAA to develop and implement a real-time S2S forecasting competition. For a year, solvers are submitting forecasts of temperature and precipitation for weeks 3&4 and 5&6 every two weeks on a 1x1 degree grid for the 17 western state domain where Reclamation operates. The competition began on April 18, 2017 and the final real-time forecast is due April 3, 2018. Forecasts are evaluated once observational data become available using spatial anomaly correlation. Scores are posted on a competition leaderboard hosted by the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). The leaderboard can be accessed at: https://www.drought.gov/drought/sub-seasonal-climate-forecast-rodeo. To be eligible for cash prizes - which total $800,000 - solvers must outperform two benchmark forecasts during the real-time competition as well as in a required 11-year hind-cast. To receive a prize, competitors must grant a non-exclusive license to practice their forecast technique and make it available as open source software. At approximately one quarter complete, there are teams outperforming the benchmarks in three of the four competition categories. With prestige and monetary incentives on the line, it is hoped that the competition will spur innovation of improved S2S forecasts through novel approaches, enhancements to established models, or otherwise. Additionally, the competition aims to raise

  17. Forecasting conditional climate-change using a hybrid approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esfahani, Akbar Akbari; Friedel, Michael J.

    2014-01-01

    A novel approach is proposed to forecast the likelihood of climate-change across spatial landscape gradients. This hybrid approach involves reconstructing past precipitation and temperature using the self-organizing map technique; determining quantile trends in the climate-change variables by quantile regression modeling; and computing conditional forecasts of climate-change variables based on self-similarity in quantile trends using the fractionally differenced auto-regressive integrated moving average technique. The proposed modeling approach is applied to states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) in the southwestern U.S., where conditional forecasts of climate-change variables are evaluated against recent (2012) observations, evaluated at a future time period (2030), and evaluated as future trends (2009–2059). These results have broad economic, political, and social implications because they quantify uncertainty in climate-change forecasts affecting various sectors of society. Another benefit of the proposed hybrid approach is that it can be extended to any spatiotemporal scale providing self-similarity exists.

  18. Net load forecasting for high renewable energy penetration grids

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kaur, Amanpreet; Nonnenmacher, Lukas; Coimbra, Carlos F.M.

    2016-01-01

    We discuss methods for net load forecasting and their significance for operation and management of power grids with high renewable energy penetration. Net load forecasting is an enabling technology for the integration of microgrid fleets with the macrogrid. Net load represents the load that is traded between the grids (microgrid and utility grid). It is important for resource allocation and electricity market participation at the point of common coupling between the interconnected grids. We compare two inherently different approaches: additive and integrated net load forecast models. The proposed methodologies are validated on a microgrid with 33% annual renewable energy (solar) penetration. A heuristics based solar forecasting technique is proposed, achieving skill of 24.20%. The integrated solar and load forecasting model outperforms the additive model by 10.69% and the uncertainty range for the additive model is larger than the integrated model by 2.2%. Thus, for grid applications an integrated forecast model is recommended. We find that the net load forecast errors and the solar forecasting errors are cointegrated with a common stochastic drift. This is useful for future planning and modeling because the solar energy time-series allows to infer important features of the net load time-series, such as expected variability and uncertainty. - Highlights: • Net load forecasting methods for grids with renewable energy generation are discussed. • Integrated solar and load forecasting outperforms the additive model by 10.69%. • Net load forecasting reduces the uncertainty between the interconnected grids.

  19. Forecasting Enrollments with Fuzzy Time Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Qiang; Chissom, Brad S.

    The concept of fuzzy time series is introduced and used to forecast the enrollment of a university. Fuzzy time series, an aspect of fuzzy set theory, forecasts enrollment using a first-order time-invariant model. To evaluate the model, the conventional linear regression technique is applied and the predicted values obtained are compared to the…

  20. Flood forecasting and uncertainty of precipitation forecasts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kobold, Mira; Suselj, Kay

    2004-01-01

    The timely and accurate flood forecasting is essential for the reliable flood warning. The effectiveness of flood warning is dependent on the forecast accuracy of certain physical parameters, such as the peak magnitude of the flood, its timing, location and duration. The conceptual rainfall - runoff models enable the estimation of these parameters and lead to useful operational forecasts. The accurate rainfall is the most important input into hydrological models. The input for the rainfall can be real time rain-gauges data, or weather radar data, or meteorological forecasted precipitation. The torrential nature of streams and fast runoff are characteristic for the most of the Slovenian rivers. Extensive damage is caused almost every year- by rainstorms affecting different regions of Slovenia' The lag time between rainfall and runoff is very short for Slovenian territory and on-line data are used only for now casting. Forecasted precipitations are necessary for hydrological forecast for some days ahead. ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) gives general forecast for several days ahead while more detailed precipitation data with limited area ALADIN/Sl model are available for two days ahead. There is a certain degree of uncertainty using such precipitation forecasts based on meteorological models. The variability of precipitation is very high in Slovenia and the uncertainty of ECMWF predicted precipitation is very large for Slovenian territory. ECMWF model can predict precipitation events correctly, but underestimates amount of precipitation in general The average underestimation is about 60% for Slovenian region. The predictions of limited area ALADIN/Si model up to; 48 hours ahead show greater applicability in hydrological forecasting. The hydrological models are sensitive to precipitation input. The deviation of runoff is much bigger than the rainfall deviation. Runoff to rainfall error fraction is about 1.6. If spatial and time distribution

  1. Probabilistic forecasting of wind power generation using extreme learning machine

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wan, Can; Xu, Zhao; Pinson, Pierre

    2014-01-01

    an extreme learning machine (ELM)-based probabilistic forecasting method for wind power generation. To account for the uncertainties in the forecasting results, several bootstrapmethods have been compared for modeling the regression uncertainty, based on which the pairs bootstrap method is identified......Accurate and reliable forecast of wind power is essential to power system operation and control. However, due to the nonstationarity of wind power series, traditional point forecasting can hardly be accurate, leading to increased uncertainties and risks for system operation. This paper proposes...... with the best performance. Consequently, a new method for prediction intervals formulation based on theELMand the pairs bootstrap is developed.Wind power forecasting has been conducted in different seasons using the proposed approach with the historical wind power time series as the inputs alone. The results...

  2. Combined time-varying forecast based on the proper scoring approach for wind power generation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Chen, Xingying; Jiang, Yu; Yu, Kun

    2017-01-01

    Compared with traditional point forecasts, combined forecast have been proposed as an effective method to provide more accurate forecasts than individual model. However, the literature and research focus on wind-power combined forecasts are relatively limited. Here, based on forecasting error...... distribution, a proper scoring approach is applied to combine plausible models to form an overall time-varying model for the next day forecasts, rather than weights-based combination. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, real data of 3 years were used for testing. Simulation results...... demonstrate that the proposed method improves the accuracy of overall forecasts, even compared with a numerical weather prediction....

  3. Evaluation of the fast orthogonal search method for forecasting chloride levels in the Deltona groundwater supply (Florida, USA)

    Science.gov (United States)

    El-Jaat, Majda; Hulley, Michael; Tétreault, Michel

    2018-02-01

    Despite the broad impact and importance of saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers, little research has been directed towards forecasting saltwater intrusion in areas where the source of saltwater is uncertain. Saline contamination in inland groundwater supplies is a concern for numerous communities in the southern US including the city of Deltona, Florida. Furthermore, conventional numerical tools for forecasting saltwater contamination are heavily dependent on reliable characterization of the physical characteristics of underlying aquifers, information that is often absent or challenging to obtain. To overcome these limitations, a reliable alternative data-driven model for forecasting salinity in a groundwater supply was developed for Deltona using the fast orthogonal search (FOS) method. FOS was applied on monthly water-demand data and corresponding chloride concentrations at water supply wells. Groundwater salinity measurements from Deltona water supply wells were applied to evaluate the forecasting capability and accuracy of the FOS model. Accurate and reliable groundwater salinity forecasting is necessary to support effective and sustainable coastal-water resource planning and management. The available (27) water supply wells for Deltona were randomly split into three test groups for the purposes of FOS model development and performance assessment. Based on four performance indices (RMSE, RSR, NSEC, and R), the FOS model proved to be a reliable and robust forecaster of groundwater salinity. FOS is relatively inexpensive to apply, is not based on rigorous physical characterization of the water supply aquifer, and yields reliable estimates of groundwater salinity in active water supply wells.

  4. Business Planning in the Light of Neuro-fuzzy and Predictive Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chakrabarti, Prasun; Basu, Jayanta Kumar; Kim, Tai-Hoon

    In this paper we have pointed out gain sensing on forecast based techniques.We have cited an idea of neural based gain forecasting. Testing of sequence of gain pattern is also verifies using statsistical analysis of fuzzy value assignment. The paper also suggests realization of stable gain condition using K-Means clustering of data mining. A new concept of 3D based gain sensing has been pointed out. The paper also reveals what type of trend analysis can be observed for probabilistic gain prediction.

  5. New Aspects of Probabilistic Forecast Verification Using Information Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tödter, Julian; Ahrens, Bodo

    2013-04-01

    This work deals with information-theoretical methods in probabilistic forecast verification, particularly concerning ensemble forecasts. Recent findings concerning the "Ignorance Score" are shortly reviewed, then a consistent generalization to continuous forecasts is motivated. For ensemble-generated forecasts, the presented measures can be calculated exactly. The Brier Score (BS) and its generalizations to the multi-categorical Ranked Probability Score (RPS) and to the Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) are prominent verification measures for probabilistic forecasts. Particularly, their decompositions into measures quantifying the reliability, resolution and uncertainty of the forecasts are attractive. Information theory sets up a natural framework for forecast verification. Recently, it has been shown that the BS is a second-order approximation of the information-based Ignorance Score (IGN), which also contains easily interpretable components and can also be generalized to a ranked version (RIGN). Here, the IGN, its generalizations and decompositions are systematically discussed in analogy to the variants of the BS. Additionally, a Continuous Ranked IGN (CRIGN) is introduced in analogy to the CRPS. The useful properties of the conceptually appealing CRIGN are illustrated, together with an algorithm to evaluate its components reliability, resolution, and uncertainty for ensemble-generated forecasts. This algorithm can also be used to calculate the decomposition of the more traditional CRPS exactly. The applicability of the "new" measures is demonstrated in a small evaluation study of ensemble-based precipitation forecasts.

  6. Price Density Forecasts in the U.S. Hog Market: Composite Procedures

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Trujillo Barrera, A.A.; Garcia, P.; Mallory, M.

    2013-01-01

    Abstract We develop and evaluate quarterly out-of-sample individual and composite density forecasts for U.S. hog prices using data from 1975.I to 2010.IV. Individual forecasts are generated from time series models and the implied distribution of USDA outlook forecasts. Composite density forecasts

  7. Weather forecasting based on hybrid neural model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saba, Tanzila; Rehman, Amjad; AlGhamdi, Jarallah S.

    2017-11-01

    Making deductions and expectations about climate has been a challenge all through mankind's history. Challenges with exact meteorological directions assist to foresee and handle problems well in time. Different strategies have been investigated using various machine learning techniques in reported forecasting systems. Current research investigates climate as a major challenge for machine information mining and deduction. Accordingly, this paper presents a hybrid neural model (MLP and RBF) to enhance the accuracy of weather forecasting. Proposed hybrid model ensure precise forecasting due to the specialty of climate anticipating frameworks. The study concentrates on the data representing Saudi Arabia weather forecasting. The main input features employed to train individual and hybrid neural networks that include average dew point, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, mean temperature, average relative moistness, precipitation, normal wind speed, high wind speed and average cloudiness. The output layer composed of two neurons to represent rainy and dry weathers. Moreover, trial and error approach is adopted to select an appropriate number of inputs to the hybrid neural network. Correlation coefficient, RMSE and scatter index are the standard yard sticks adopted for forecast accuracy measurement. On individual standing MLP forecasting results are better than RBF, however, the proposed simplified hybrid neural model comes out with better forecasting accuracy as compared to both individual networks. Additionally, results are better than reported in the state of art, using a simple neural structure that reduces training time and complexity.

  8. Evaluation of Wind Power Forecasts from the Vermont Weather Analytics Center and Identification of Improvements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Optis, Michael [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Scott, George N. [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Draxl, Caroline [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2018-02-02

    The goal of this analysis was to assess the wind power forecast accuracy of the Vermont Weather Analytics Center (VTWAC) forecast system and to identify potential improvements to the forecasts. Based on the analysis at Georgia Mountain, the following recommendations for improving forecast performance were made: 1. Resolve the significant negative forecast bias in February-March 2017 (50% underprediction on average) 2. Improve the ability of the forecast model to capture the strong diurnal cycle of wind power 3. Add ability for forecast model to assess internal wake loss, particularly at sites where strong diurnal shifts in wind direction are present. Data availability and quality limited the robustness of this forecast assessment. A more thorough analysis would be possible given a longer period of record for the data (at least one full year), detailed supervisory control and data acquisition data for each wind plant, and more detailed information on the forecast system input data and methodologies.

  9. Options to Improve the Quality of Wind Generation Output Forecasting with the Use of Available Information as Explanatory Variables

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rafał Magulski

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Development of wind generation, besides its positive aspects related to the use of renewable energy, is a challenge from the point of view of power systems’ operational security and economy. The uncertain and variable nature of wind generation sources entails the need for the for the TSO to provide adequate reserves of power, necessary to maintain the grid’s stable operation, and the actors involved in the trading of energy from these sources incur additional of balancing unplanned output deviations. The paper presents the results of analyses concerning the options to forecast a selected wind farm’s output exercised by means of different methods of prediction, using a different range of measurement and forecasting data available on the farm and its surroundings. The analyses focused on the evaluation of forecast errors, and selection of input data for forecasting models and assessment of their impact on prediction quality improvement.

  10. Evaluation of the Plant-Craig stochastic convection scheme in an ensemble forecasting system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keane, R. J.; Plant, R. S.; Tennant, W. J.

    2015-12-01

    The Plant-Craig stochastic convection parameterization (version 2.0) is implemented in the Met Office Regional Ensemble Prediction System (MOGREPS-R) and is assessed in comparison with the standard convection scheme with a simple stochastic element only, from random parameter variation. A set of 34 ensemble forecasts, each with 24 members, is considered, over the month of July 2009. Deterministic and probabilistic measures of the precipitation forecasts are assessed. The Plant-Craig parameterization is found to improve probabilistic forecast measures, particularly the results for lower precipitation thresholds. The impact on deterministic forecasts at the grid scale is neutral, although the Plant-Craig scheme does deliver improvements when forecasts are made over larger areas. The improvements found are greater in conditions of relatively weak synoptic forcing, for which convective precipitation is likely to be less predictable.

  11. Flood Forecasting in River System Using ANFIS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ullah, Nazrin; Choudhury, P.

    2010-01-01

    The aim of the present study is to investigate applicability of artificial intelligence techniques such as ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System) in forecasting flood flow in a river system. The proposed technique combines the learning ability of neural network with the transparent linguistic representation of fuzzy system. The technique is applied to forecast discharge at a downstream station using flow information at various upstream stations. A total of three years data has been selected for the implementation of this model. ANFIS models with various input structures and membership functions are constructed, trained and tested to evaluate efficiency of the models. Statistical indices such as Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Correlation Coefficient (CORR) and Coefficient of Efficiency (CE) are used to evaluate performance of the ANFIS models in forecasting river flood. The values of the indices show that ANFIS model can accurately and reliably be used to forecast flood in a river system.

  12. A Bayesian modelling method for post-processing daily sub-seasonal to seasonal rainfall forecasts from global climate models and evaluation for 12 Australian catchments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schepen, Andrew; Zhao, Tongtiegang; Wang, Quan J.; Robertson, David E.

    2018-03-01

    Rainfall forecasts are an integral part of hydrological forecasting systems at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales. In seasonal forecasting, global climate models (GCMs) are now the go-to source for rainfall forecasts. For hydrological applications however, GCM forecasts are often biased and unreliable in uncertainty spread, and calibration is therefore required before use. There are sophisticated statistical techniques for calibrating monthly and seasonal aggregations of the forecasts. However, calibration of seasonal forecasts at the daily time step typically uses very simple statistical methods or climate analogue methods. These methods generally lack the sophistication to achieve unbiased, reliable and coherent forecasts of daily amounts and seasonal accumulated totals. In this study, we propose and evaluate a Rainfall Post-Processing method for Seasonal forecasts (RPP-S), which is based on the Bayesian joint probability modelling approach for calibrating daily forecasts and the Schaake Shuffle for connecting the daily ensemble members of different lead times. We apply the method to post-process ACCESS-S forecasts for 12 perennial and ephemeral catchments across Australia and for 12 initialisation dates. RPP-S significantly reduces bias in raw forecasts and improves both skill and reliability. RPP-S forecasts are also more skilful and reliable than forecasts derived from ACCESS-S forecasts that have been post-processed using quantile mapping, especially for monthly and seasonal accumulations. Several opportunities to improve the robustness and skill of RPP-S are identified. The new RPP-S post-processed forecasts will be used in ensemble sub-seasonal to seasonal streamflow applications.

  13. Particle Swarm Optimization-based BP Neural Network for UHV DC Insulator Pollution Forecasting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fangcheng Lü

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available In order to realize the forecasting of the UHV DC insulator's pollution conditions, we introduced a PSOBP algorithm. A BP neural network (BPNN with leakage current, temperature, relative humidity and dew point as input neurons, and ESDD as output neuron was built to forecast the ESDD. The PSO was used to optimize the the BPNN, which had great improved the convergence rate of the BP neural network. The dew point as a brand new input unit has improved the iteration speed of the PSOBP algorithm in this study. It was the first time that the PSOBP algorithm was applied to the UHV DC insulator pollution forecasting. The experiment results showed that the method had great advantages in accuracy and speed of convergence. The research showed that this algorithm was suitable for the UHV DC insulator pollution forecasting.

  14. Supplier Short Term Load Forecasting Using Support Vector Regression and Exogenous Input

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matijaš, Marin; Vukićcević, Milan; Krajcar, Slavko

    2011-09-01

    In power systems, task of load forecasting is important for keeping equilibrium between production and consumption. With liberalization of electricity markets, task of load forecasting changed because each market participant has to forecast their own load. Consumption of end-consumers is stochastic in nature. Due to competition, suppliers are not in a position to transfer their costs to end-consumers; therefore it is essential to keep forecasting error as low as possible. Numerous papers are investigating load forecasting from the perspective of the grid or production planning. We research forecasting models from the perspective of a supplier. In this paper, we investigate different combinations of exogenous input on the simulated supplier loads and show that using points of delivery as a feature for Support Vector Regression leads to lower forecasting error, while adding customer number in different datasets does the opposite.

  15. Forecasting droughts in West Africa: Operational practice and refined seasonal precipitation forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bliefernicht, Jan; Siegmund, Jonatan; Seidel, Jochen; Arnold, Hanna; Waongo, Moussa; Laux, Patrick; Kunstmann, Harald

    2016-04-01

    Precipitation forecasts for the upcoming rainy seasons are one of the most important sources of information for an early warning of droughts and water scarcity in West Africa. The meteorological services in West Africa perform seasonal precipitation forecasts within the framework of PRESAO (the West African climate outlook forum) since the end of the 1990s. Various sources of information and statistical techniques are used by the individual services to provide a harmonized seasonal precipitation forecasts for decision makers in West Africa. In this study, we present a detailed overview of the operational practice in West Africa including a first statistical assessment of the performance of the precipitation forecasts for drought situations for the past 18 years (1998 to 2015). In addition, a long-term hindcasts (1982 to 2009) and a semi-operational experiment for the rainy season 2013 using statistical and/or dynamical downscaling are performed to refine the precipitation forecasts from the Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2), a global ensemble prediction system. This information is post-processed to provide user-oriented precipitation indices such as the onset of the rainy season for supporting water and land use management for rain-fed agriculture. The evaluation of the individual techniques is performed focusing on water-scarce regions of the Volta basin in Burkina Faso and Ghana. The forecasts of the individual techniques are compared to state-of-the-art global observed precipitation products and a novel precipitation database based on long-term daily rain-gage measurements provided by the national meteorological services. The statistical assessment of the PRESAO forecasts indicates skillful seasonal precipitation forecasts for many locations in the Volta basin, particularly for years with water deficits. The operational experiment for the rainy season 2013 illustrates the high potential of a physically-based downscaling for this region but still shows

  16. Forecast Combinations

    OpenAIRE

    Timmermann, Allan G

    2005-01-01

    Forecast combinations have frequently been found in empirical studies to produce better forecasts on average than methods based on the ex-ante best individual forecasting model. Moreover, simple combinations that ignore correlations between forecast errors often dominate more refined combination schemes aimed at estimating the theoretically optimal combination weights. In this paper we analyse theoretically the factors that determine the advantages from combining forecasts (for example, the d...

  17. Forecasting daily patient volumes in the emergency department.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Spencer S; Thomas, Alun; Evans, R Scott; Welch, Shari J; Haug, Peter J; Snow, Gregory L

    2008-02-01

    Shifts in the supply of and demand for emergency department (ED) resources make the efficient allocation of ED resources increasingly important. Forecasting is a vital activity that guides decision-making in many areas of economic, industrial, and scientific planning, but has gained little traction in the health care industry. There are few studies that explore the use of forecasting methods to predict patient volumes in the ED. The goals of this study are to explore and evaluate the use of several statistical forecasting methods to predict daily ED patient volumes at three diverse hospital EDs and to compare the accuracy of these methods to the accuracy of a previously proposed forecasting method. Daily patient arrivals at three hospital EDs were collected for the period January 1, 2005, through March 31, 2007. The authors evaluated the use of seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average, time series regression, exponential smoothing, and artificial neural network models to forecast daily patient volumes at each facility. Forecasts were made for horizons ranging from 1 to 30 days in advance. The forecast accuracy achieved by the various forecasting methods was compared to the forecast accuracy achieved when using a benchmark forecasting method already available in the emergency medicine literature. All time series methods considered in this analysis provided improved in-sample model goodness of fit. However, post-sample analysis revealed that time series regression models that augment linear regression models by accounting for serial autocorrelation offered only small improvements in terms of post-sample forecast accuracy, relative to multiple linear regression models, while seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average, exponential smoothing, and artificial neural network forecasting models did not provide consistently accurate forecasts of daily ED volumes. This study confirms the widely held belief that daily demand for ED services is characterized by

  18. Forecaster Behaviour and Bias in Macroeconomic Forecasts

    OpenAIRE

    Roy Batchelor

    2007-01-01

    This paper documents the presence of systematic bias in the real GDP and inflation forecasts of private sector forecasters in the G7 economies in the years 1990–2005. The data come from the monthly Consensus Economics forecasting service, and bias is measured and tested for significance using parametric fixed effect panel regressions and nonparametric tests on accuracy ranks. We examine patterns across countries and forecasters to establish whether the bias reflects the inefficient use of i...

  19. Spatiotemporal drought forecasting using nonlinear models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vasiliades, Lampros; Loukas, Athanasios

    2010-05-01

    Spatiotemporal data mining is the extraction of unknown and implicit knowledge, structures, spatiotemporal relationships, or patterns not explicitly stored in spatiotemporal databases. As one of data mining techniques, forecasting is widely used to predict the unknown future based upon the patterns hidden in the current and past data. In order to achieve spatiotemporal forecasting, some mature analysis tools, e.g., time series and spatial statistics are extended to the spatial dimension and the temporal dimension, respectively. Drought forecasting plays an important role in the planning and management of natural resources and water resource systems in a river basin. Early and timelines forecasting of a drought event can help to take proactive measures and set out drought mitigation strategies to alleviate the impacts of drought. Despite the widespread application of nonlinear mathematical models, comparative studies on spatiotemporal drought forecasting using different models are still a huge task for modellers. This study uses a promising approach, the Gamma Test (GT), to select the input variables and the training data length, so that the trial and error workload could be greatly reduced. The GT enables to quickly evaluate and estimate the best mean squared error that can be achieved by a smooth model on any unseen data for a given selection of inputs, prior to model construction. The GT is applied to forecast droughts using monthly Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) timeseries at multiple timescales in several precipitation stations at Pinios river basin in Thessaly region, Greece. Several nonlinear models have been developed efficiently, with the aid of the GT, for 1-month up to 12-month ahead forecasting. Several temporal and spatial statistical indices were considered for the performance evaluation of the models. The predicted results show reasonably good agreement with the actual data for short lead times, whereas the forecasting accuracy decreases with

  20. A Fuzzy Collaborative Forecasting Approach for Forecasting the Productivity of a Factory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yi-Chi Wang

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Productivity is always considered as one of the most basic and important factors to the competitiveness of a factory. For this reason, all factories have sought to enhance productivity. To achieve this goal, we first need to estimate the productivity. However, there is considerable degree of uncertainty in productivity. For this reason, a fuzzy collaborative forecasting approach is proposed in this study to forecast the productivity of a factory. First, a learning model is established to estimate the future productivity. Subsequently, the learning model is converted into three equivalent nonlinear programming problems to be solved from various viewpoints. The fuzzy productivity forecasts by different experts may not be equal and should therefore be aggregated. To this end, the fuzzy intersection and back propagation network approach is applied. The practical example of a dynamic random access memory (DRAM factory is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

  1. Forecasting monthly peak demand of electricity in India—A critique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rallapalli, Srinivasa Rao; Ghosh, Sajal

    2012-01-01

    The nature of electricity differs from that of other commodities since electricity is a non-storable good and there have been significant seasonal and diurnal variations of demand. Under such condition, precise forecasting of demand for electricity should be an integral part of the planning process as this enables the policy makers to provide directions on cost-effective investment and on scheduling the operation of the existing and new power plants so that the supply of electricity can be made adequate enough to meet the future demand and its variations. Official load forecasting in India done by Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is often criticized for being overestimated due to inferior techniques used for forecasting. This paper tries to evaluate monthly peak demand forecasting performance predicted by CEA using trend method and compare it with those predicted by Multiplicative Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (MSARIMA) model. It has been found that MSARIMA model outperforms CEA forecasts both in-sample static and out-of-sample dynamic forecast horizons in all five regional grids in India. For better load management and grid discipline, this study suggests employing sophisticated techniques like MSARIMA for peak load forecasting in India. - Highlights: ► This paper evaluates monthly peak demand forecasting performance by CEA. ► Compares CEA forecasts it with those predicted by MSARIMA model. ► MSARIMA model outperforms CEA forecasts in all five regional grids in India. ► Opportunity exists to improve the performance of CEA forecasts.

  2. Forecast combinations

    OpenAIRE

    Aiolfi, Marco; Capistrán, Carlos; Timmermann, Allan

    2010-01-01

    We consider combinations of subjective survey forecasts and model-based forecasts from linear and non-linear univariate specifications as well as multivariate factor-augmented models. Empirical results suggest that a simple equal-weighted average of survey forecasts outperform the best model-based forecasts for a majority of macroeconomic variables and forecast horizons. Additional improvements can in some cases be gained by using a simple equal-weighted average of survey and model-based fore...

  3. How much are you prepared to PAY for a forecast?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arnal, Louise; Coughlan, Erin; Ramos, Maria-Helena; Pappenberger, Florian; Wetterhall, Fredrik; Bachofen, Carina; van Andel, Schalk Jan

    2015-04-01

    Probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasts are a crucial element of the decision-making chain in the field of flood prevention. The operational use of probabilistic forecasts is increasingly promoted through the development of new novel state-of-the-art forecast methods and numerical skill is continuously increasing. However, the value of such forecasts for flood early-warning systems is a topic of diverging opinions. Indeed, the word value, when applied to flood forecasting, is multifaceted. It refers, not only to the raw cost of acquiring and maintaining a probabilistic forecasting system (in terms of human and financial resources, data volume and computational time), but also and most importantly perhaps, to the use of such products. This game aims at investigating this point. It is a willingness to pay game, embedded in a risk-based decision-making experiment. Based on a ``Red Cross/Red Crescent, Climate Centre'' game, it is a contribution to the international Hydrologic Ensemble Prediction Experiment (HEPEX). A limited number of probabilistic forecasts will be auctioned to the participants; the price of these forecasts being market driven. All participants (irrespective of having bought or not a forecast set) will then be taken through a decision-making process to issue warnings for extreme rainfall. This game will promote discussions around the topic of the value of forecasts for decision-making in the field of flood prevention.

  4. An investigation of forecast horizon and observation fit’s influence on an econometric rate forecast model in the liner shipping industry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Peter; Jiang, Liping; Rytter, Niels Gorm Malý

    2014-01-01

    This paper evaluates the influence of forecast horizon and observation fit on the robustness and performance of a specific freight rate forecast model used in the liner shipping industry. In the first stage of the research, a forecast model used to predict container freight rate development...... of the forecast horizon and observation fit and their interactions on the forecast model's performance. The results underline the complicated nature of creating a suitable forecast model by balancing business needs, a desire to fit a good model and achieve high accuracy. There is strong empirical evidence from...... this study; that a robust model is preferable, that overfitting is a true danger, and that a balance must be achieved between forecast horizon and the number of observations used to fit the model. In addition, methodological guidance has also been provided on how to test, design, and choose the superior...

  5. ENSEMBLE methods to reconcile disparate national long range dispersion forecasts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mikkelsen, Torben; Galmarini, S.; Bianconi, R.

    2003-01-01

    ENSEMBLE is a web-based decision support system for real-time exchange and evaluation of national long-range dispersion forecasts of nuclear releases with cross-boundary consequences. The system is developed with the purpose to reconcile among disparatenational forecasts for long-range dispersion...... emergency and meteorological forecasting centres, which may choose to integrate them directly intooperational emergency information systems, or possibly use them as a basis for future system development.......ENSEMBLE is a web-based decision support system for real-time exchange and evaluation of national long-range dispersion forecasts of nuclear releases with cross-boundary consequences. The system is developed with the purpose to reconcile among disparatenational forecasts for long-range dispersion....... ENSEMBLE addresses the problem of achieving a common coherent strategy across European national emergency management when national long-range dispersion forecasts differ from one another during an accidentalatmospheric release of radioactive material. A series of new decision-making “ENSEMBLE” procedures...

  6. Very-short-term wind power probabilistic forecasts by sparse vector autoregression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dowell, Jethro; Pinson, Pierre

    2016-01-01

    A spatio-temporal method for producing very-shortterm parametric probabilistic wind power forecasts at a large number of locations is presented. Smart grids containing tens, or hundreds, of wind generators require skilled very-short-term forecasts to operate effectively, and spatial information...... is highly desirable. In addition, probabilistic forecasts are widely regarded as necessary for optimal power system management as they quantify the uncertainty associated with point forecasts. Here we work within a parametric framework based on the logit-normal distribution and forecast its parameters....... The location parameter for multiple wind farms is modelled as a vector-valued spatiotemporal process, and the scale parameter is tracked by modified exponential smoothing. A state-of-the-art technique for fitting sparse vector autoregressive models is employed to model the location parameter and demonstrates...

  7. Short term and medium term power distribution load forecasting by neural networks

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yalcinoz, T.; Eminoglu, U.

    2005-01-01

    Load forecasting is an important subject for power distribution systems and has been studied from different points of view. In general, load forecasts should be performed over a broad spectrum of time intervals, which could be classified into short term, medium term and long term forecasts. Several research groups have proposed various techniques for either short term load forecasting or medium term load forecasting or long term load forecasting. This paper presents a neural network (NN) model for short term peak load forecasting, short term total load forecasting and medium term monthly load forecasting in power distribution systems. The NN is used to learn the relationships among past, current and future temperatures and loads. The neural network was trained to recognize the peak load of the day, total load of the day and monthly electricity consumption. The suitability of the proposed approach is illustrated through an application to real load shapes from the Turkish Electricity Distribution Corporation (TEDAS) in Nigde. The data represents the daily and monthly electricity consumption in Nigde, Turkey

  8. Gas demand forecasting by a new artificial intelligent algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khatibi. B, Vahid; Khatibi, Elham

    2012-01-01

    Energy demand forecasting is a key issue for consumers and generators in all energy markets in the world. This paper presents a new forecasting algorithm for daily gas demand prediction. This algorithm combines a wavelet transform and forecasting models such as multi-layer perceptron (MLP), linear regression or GARCH. The proposed method is applied to real data from the UK gas markets to evaluate their performance. The results show that the forecasting accuracy is improved significantly by using the proposed method.

  9. Evaluating the spatio-temporal performance of sky-imager-based solar irradiance analysis and forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, Thomas; Kalisch, John; Lorenz, Elke; Heinemann, Detlev

    2016-03-01

    Clouds are the dominant source of small-scale variability in surface solar radiation and uncertainty in its prediction. However, the increasing share of solar energy in the worldwide electric power supply increases the need for accurate solar radiation forecasts. In this work, we present results of a very short term global horizontal irradiance (GHI) forecast experiment based on hemispheric sky images. A 2-month data set with images from one sky imager and high-resolution GHI measurements from 99 pyranometers distributed over 10 km by 12 km is used for validation. We developed a multi-step model and processed GHI forecasts up to 25 min with an update interval of 15 s. A cloud type classification is used to separate the time series into different cloud scenarios. Overall, the sky-imager-based forecasts do not outperform the reference persistence forecasts. Nevertheless, we find that analysis and forecast performance depends strongly on the predominant cloud conditions. Especially convective type clouds lead to high temporal and spatial GHI variability. For cumulus cloud conditions, the analysis error is found to be lower than that introduced by a single pyranometer if it is used representatively for the whole area in distances from the camera larger than 1-2 km. Moreover, forecast skill is much higher for these conditions compared to overcast or clear sky situations causing low GHI variability, which is easier to predict by persistence. In order to generalize the cloud-induced forecast error, we identify a variability threshold indicating conditions with positive forecast skill.

  10. Evaluating the spatio-temporal performance of sky-imager-based solar irradiance analysis and forecasts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. Schmidt

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Clouds are the dominant source of small-scale variability in surface solar radiation and uncertainty in its prediction. However, the increasing share of solar energy in the worldwide electric power supply increases the need for accurate solar radiation forecasts. In this work, we present results of a very short term global horizontal irradiance (GHI forecast experiment based on hemispheric sky images. A 2-month data set with images from one sky imager and high-resolution GHI measurements from 99 pyranometers distributed over 10 km by 12 km is used for validation. We developed a multi-step model and processed GHI forecasts up to 25 min with an update interval of 15 s. A cloud type classification is used to separate the time series into different cloud scenarios. Overall, the sky-imager-based forecasts do not outperform the reference persistence forecasts. Nevertheless, we find that analysis and forecast performance depends strongly on the predominant cloud conditions. Especially convective type clouds lead to high temporal and spatial GHI variability. For cumulus cloud conditions, the analysis error is found to be lower than that introduced by a single pyranometer if it is used representatively for the whole area in distances from the camera larger than 1–2 km. Moreover, forecast skill is much higher for these conditions compared to overcast or clear sky situations causing low GHI variability, which is easier to predict by persistence. In order to generalize the cloud-induced forecast error, we identify a variability threshold indicating conditions with positive forecast skill.

  11. Evaluating the spatio-temporal performance of sky imager based solar irradiance analysis and forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, T.; Kalisch, J.; Lorenz, E.; Heinemann, D.

    2015-10-01

    Clouds are the dominant source of variability in surface solar radiation and uncertainty in its prediction. However, the increasing share of solar energy in the world-wide electric power supply increases the need for accurate solar radiation forecasts. In this work, we present results of a shortest-term global horizontal irradiance (GHI) forecast experiment based on hemispheric sky images. A two month dataset with images from one sky imager and high resolutive GHI measurements from 99 pyranometers distributed over 10 km by 12 km is used for validation. We developed a multi-step model and processed GHI forecasts up to 25 min with an update interval of 15 s. A cloud type classification is used to separate the time series in different cloud scenarios. Overall, the sky imager based forecasts do not outperform the reference persistence forecasts. Nevertheless, we find that analysis and forecast performance depend strongly on the predominant cloud conditions. Especially convective type clouds lead to high temporal and spatial GHI variability. For cumulus cloud conditions, the analysis error is found to be lower than that introduced by a single pyranometer if it is used representatively for the whole area in distances from the camera larger than 1-2 km. Moreover, forecast skill is much higher for these conditions compared to overcast or clear sky situations causing low GHI variability which is easier to predict by persistence. In order to generalize the cloud-induced forecast error, we identify a variability threshold indicating conditions with positive forecast skill.

  12. Estimation of the uncertainty in wind power forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pinson, P.

    2006-03-01

    WIND POWER experiences a tremendous development of its installed capacities in Europe. Though, the intermittence of wind generation causes difficulties in the management of power systems. Also, in the context of the deregulation of electricity markets, wind energy is penalized by its intermittent nature. It is recognized today that the forecasting of wind power for horizons up to 2/3-day ahead eases the integration of wind generation. Wind power forecasts are traditionally provided in the form of point predictions, which correspond to the most-likely power production for a given horizon. That sole information is not sufficient for developing optimal management or trading strategies. Therefore, we investigate on possible ways for estimating the uncertainty of wind power forecasts. The characteristics of the prediction uncertainty are described by a thorough study of the performance of some of the state-of-the-art approaches, and by underlining the influence of some variables e.g. level of predicted power on distributions of prediction errors. Then, a generic method for the estimation of prediction intervals is introduced. This statistical method is non-parametric and utilizes fuzzy logic concepts for integrating expertise on the prediction uncertainty characteristics. By estimating several prediction intervals at once, one obtains predictive distributions of wind power output. The proposed method is evaluated in terms of its reliability, sharpness and resolution. In parallel, we explore the potential use of ensemble predictions for skill forecasting. Wind power ensemble forecasts are obtained either by converting meteorological ensembles (from ECMWF and NCEP) to power or by applying a poor man's temporal approach. A proposal for the definition of prediction risk indices is given, reflecting the disagreement between ensemble members over a set of successive look-ahead times. Such prediction risk indices may comprise a more comprehensive signal on the expected level

  13. A Bayesian modelling method for post-processing daily sub-seasonal to seasonal rainfall forecasts from global climate models and evaluation for 12 Australian catchments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Schepen

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Rainfall forecasts are an integral part of hydrological forecasting systems at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales. In seasonal forecasting, global climate models (GCMs are now the go-to source for rainfall forecasts. For hydrological applications however, GCM forecasts are often biased and unreliable in uncertainty spread, and calibration is therefore required before use. There are sophisticated statistical techniques for calibrating monthly and seasonal aggregations of the forecasts. However, calibration of seasonal forecasts at the daily time step typically uses very simple statistical methods or climate analogue methods. These methods generally lack the sophistication to achieve unbiased, reliable and coherent forecasts of daily amounts and seasonal accumulated totals. In this study, we propose and evaluate a Rainfall Post-Processing method for Seasonal forecasts (RPP-S, which is based on the Bayesian joint probability modelling approach for calibrating daily forecasts and the Schaake Shuffle for connecting the daily ensemble members of different lead times. We apply the method to post-process ACCESS-S forecasts for 12 perennial and ephemeral catchments across Australia and for 12 initialisation dates. RPP-S significantly reduces bias in raw forecasts and improves both skill and reliability. RPP-S forecasts are also more skilful and reliable than forecasts derived from ACCESS-S forecasts that have been post-processed using quantile mapping, especially for monthly and seasonal accumulations. Several opportunities to improve the robustness and skill of RPP-S are identified. The new RPP-S post-processed forecasts will be used in ensemble sub-seasonal to seasonal streamflow applications.

  14. Operational hydrological forecasting in Bavaria. Part I: Forecast uncertainty

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ehret, U.; Vogelbacher, A.; Moritz, K.; Laurent, S.; Meyer, I.; Haag, I.

    2009-04-01

    In Bavaria, operational flood forecasting has been established since the disastrous flood of 1999. Nowadays, forecasts based on rainfall information from about 700 raingauges and 600 rivergauges are calculated and issued for nearly 100 rivergauges. With the added experience of the 2002 and 2005 floods, awareness grew that the standard deterministic forecast, neglecting the uncertainty associated with each forecast is misleading, creating a false feeling of unambiguousness. As a consequence, a system to identify, quantify and communicate the sources and magnitude of forecast uncertainty has been developed, which will be presented in part I of this study. In this system, the use of ensemble meteorological forecasts plays a key role which will be presented in part II. Developing the system, several constraints stemming from the range of hydrological regimes and operational requirements had to be met: Firstly, operational time constraints obviate the variation of all components of the modeling chain as would be done in a full Monte Carlo simulation. Therefore, an approach was chosen where only the most relevant sources of uncertainty were dynamically considered while the others were jointly accounted for by static error distributions from offline analysis. Secondly, the dominant sources of uncertainty vary over the wide range of forecasted catchments: In alpine headwater catchments, typically of a few hundred square kilometers in size, rainfall forecast uncertainty is the key factor for forecast uncertainty, with a magnitude dynamically changing with the prevailing predictability of the atmosphere. In lowland catchments encompassing several thousands of square kilometers, forecast uncertainty in the desired range (usually up to two days) is mainly dependent on upstream gauge observation quality, routing and unpredictable human impact such as reservoir operation. The determination of forecast uncertainty comprised the following steps: a) From comparison of gauge

  15. Evaluation of induced seismicity forecast models in the Induced Seismicity Test Bench

    Science.gov (United States)

    Király, Eszter; Gischig, Valentin; Zechar, Jeremy; Doetsch, Joseph; Karvounis, Dimitrios; Wiemer, Stefan

    2016-04-01

    Induced earthquakes often accompany fluid injection, and the seismic hazard they pose threatens various underground engineering projects. Models to monitor and control induced seismic hazard with traffic light systems should be probabilistic, forward-looking, and updated as new data arrive. Here, we propose an Induced Seismicity Test Bench to test and rank such models. We apply the test bench to data from the Basel 2006 and Soultz-sous-Forêts 2004 geothermal stimulation projects, and we assess forecasts from two models that incorporate a different mix of physical understanding and stochastic representation of the induced sequences: Shapiro in Space (SiS) and Hydraulics and Seismics (HySei). SiS is based on three pillars: the seismicity rate is computed with help of the seismogenic index and a simple exponential decay of the seismicity; the magnitude distribution follows the Gutenberg-Richter relation; and seismicity is distributed in space based on smoothing seismicity during the learning period with 3D Gaussian kernels. The HySei model describes seismicity triggered by pressure diffusion with irreversible permeability enhancement. Our results show that neither model is fully superior to the other. HySei forecasts the seismicity rate well, but is only mediocre at forecasting the spatial distribution. On the other hand, SiS forecasts the spatial distribution well but not the seismicity rate. The shut-in phase is a difficult moment for both models in both reservoirs: the models tend to underpredict the seismicity rate around, and shortly after, shut-in. Ensemble models that combine HySei's rate forecast with SiS's spatial forecast outperform each individual model.

  16. An Assessment of the Subseasonal Forecast Performance in the Extended Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sinsky, E.; Zhu, Y.; Li, W.; Guan, H.; Melhauser, C.

    2017-12-01

    Optimal forecast quality is crucial for the preservation of life and property. Improving monthly forecast performance over both the tropics and extra-tropics requires attention to various physical aspects such as the representation of the underlying SST, model physics and the representation of the model physics uncertainty for an ensemble forecast system. This work focuses on the impact of stochastic physics, SST and the convection scheme on forecast performance for the sub-seasonal scale over the tropics and extra-tropics with emphasis on the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). A 2-year period is evaluated using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS). Three experiments with different configurations than the operational GEFS were performed to illustrate the impact of the stochastic physics, SST and convection scheme. These experiments are compared against a control experiment (CTL) which consists of the operational GEFS but its integration is extended from 16 to 35 days. The three configurations are: 1) SPs, which uses a Stochastically Perturbed Physics Tendencies (SPPT), Stochastic Perturbed Humidity (SHUM) and Stochastic Kinetic Energy Backscatter (SKEB); 2) SPs+SST_bc, which uses a combination of SPs and a bias-corrected forecast SST from the NCEP Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2); and 3) SPs+SST_bc+SA_CV, which combines SPs, a bias-corrected forecast SST and a scale aware convection scheme. When comparing to the CTL experiment, SPs shows substantial improvement. The MJO skill has improved by about 4 lead days during the 2-year period. Improvement is also seen over the extra-tropics due to the updated stochastic physics, where there is a 3.1% and a 4.2% improvement during weeks 3 and 4 over the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere, respectively. Improvement is also seen when the bias-corrected CFSv2 SST is combined with SPs. Additionally, forecast performance enhances when the scale aware

  17. Forecasting Ability But No Profitability: An Empirical Evaluation of Genetic Algorithm-optimised Technical Trading Rules

    OpenAIRE

    Pereira, Robert

    1999-01-01

    This paper evaluates the performance of several popular technical trading rules applied to the Australian share market. The optimal trading rule parameter values over the in-sample period of 4/1/82 to 31/12/89 are found using a genetic algorithm. These optimal rules are then evaluated in terms of their forecasting ability and economic profitability during the out-of-sample period from 2/1/90 to the 31/12/97. The results indicate that the optimal rules outperform the benchmark given by a risk-...

  18. Evaluation of Operational Wave Forecasts for the Northeastern Coast of Taiwan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beng-Chun Lee

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available An operational regional wave forecasting system was established to fulfill the demands of maritime engineering applications on the northeastern coast of Taiwan. This Mixed system consisted of a nested SWAN numerical wave model and experienced marine meteorologists who were sent to the construction site as the in situ predictors to validate output from the numerical model so as to improve the forecasting accuracy.

  19. MAG4 versus alternative techniques for forecasting active region flare productivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Falconer, David A; Moore, Ronald L; Barghouty, Abdulnasser F; Khazanov, Igor

    2014-01-01

    MAG4 is a technique of forecasting an active region's rate of production of major flares in the coming few days from a free magnetic energy proxy. We present a statistical method of measuring the difference in performance between MAG4 and comparable alternative techniques that forecast an active region's major-flare productivity from alternative observed aspects of the active region. We demonstrate the method by measuring the difference in performance between the “Present MAG4” technique and each of three alternative techniques, called “McIntosh Active-Region Class,” “Total Magnetic Flux,” and “Next MAG4.” We do this by using (1) the MAG4 database of magnetograms and major flare histories of sunspot active regions, (2) the NOAA table of the major-flare productivity of each of 60 McIntosh active-region classes of sunspot active regions, and (3) five technique performance metrics (Heidke Skill Score, True Skill Score, Percent Correct, Probability of Detection, and False Alarm Rate) evaluated from 2000 random two-by-two contingency tables obtained from the databases. We find that (1) Present MAG4 far outperforms both McIntosh Active-Region Class and Total Magnetic Flux, (2) Next MAG4 significantly outperforms Present MAG4, (3) the performance of Next MAG4 is insensitive to the forward and backward temporal windows used, in the range of one to a few days, and (4) forecasting from the free-energy proxy in combination with either any broad category of McIntosh active-region classes or any Mount Wilson active-region class gives no significant performance improvement over forecasting from the free-energy proxy alone (Present MAG4). Key Points Quantitative comparison of performance of pairs of forecasting techniques Next MAG4 forecasts major flares more accurately than Present MAG4 Present MAG4 forecast outperforms McIntosh AR Class and total magnetic flux PMID:26213517

  20. Short-term wind power combined forecasting based on error forecast correction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liang, Zhengtang; Liang, Jun; Wang, Chengfu; Dong, Xiaoming; Miao, Xiaofeng

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • The correlation relationships of short-term wind power forecast errors are studied. • The correlation analysis method of the multi-step forecast errors is proposed. • A strategy selecting the input variables for the error forecast models is proposed. • Several novel combined models based on error forecast correction are proposed. • The combined models have improved the short-term wind power forecasting accuracy. - Abstract: With the increasing contribution of wind power to electric power grids, accurate forecasting of short-term wind power has become particularly valuable for wind farm operators, utility operators and customers. The aim of this study is to investigate the interdependence structure of errors in short-term wind power forecasting that is crucial for building error forecast models with regression learning algorithms to correct predictions and improve final forecasting accuracy. In this paper, several novel short-term wind power combined forecasting models based on error forecast correction are proposed in the one-step ahead, continuous and discontinuous multi-step ahead forecasting modes. First, the correlation relationships of forecast errors of the autoregressive model, the persistence method and the support vector machine model in various forecasting modes have been investigated to determine whether the error forecast models can be established by regression learning algorithms. Second, according to the results of the correlation analysis, the range of input variables is defined and an efficient strategy for selecting the input variables for the error forecast models is proposed. Finally, several combined forecasting models are proposed, in which the error forecast models are based on support vector machine/extreme learning machine, and correct the short-term wind power forecast values. The data collected from a wind farm in Hebei Province, China, are selected as a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed

  1. Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting for Power System Operations

    KAUST Repository

    Zhu, Xinxin; Genton, Marc G.

    2012-01-01

    some statistical short-term wind speed forecasting models, including traditional time series approaches and more advanced space-time statistical models. It also discusses the evaluation of forecast accuracy, in particular, the need for realistic loss

  2. Wave forecasting and monitoring during very severe cyclone Phailin in the Bay of Bengal.

    Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

    Nair, T.M.B; Remya, P.G.; Harikumar, R.; Sandhya, K.G.; Sirisha, P.; Srinivas, K.; Nagaraju, C.; Nherakkol, A.; KrishnaPrasad, B.; Jeyakumar, C.; Kaviyazhahu, K.; Hithin, N.K.; Kumari, R.; SanilKumar, V.; RameshKumar, M.; Shenoi, S.S.C.; Nayak, S.

    Wave fields, both measured and forecast during the very severe cyclone Phailin, are discussed in this communication. Waves having maximum height of 13.54 m were recorded at Gopalpur, the landfall point of the cyclone. The forecast and observed...

  3. Fuel cycle forecasting - there are forecasts and there are forecasts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Puechl, K.H.

    1975-01-01

    The FORECAST-NUCLEAR computer program described recognizes that forecasts are made to answer a variety of questions and, therefore, that no single forecast is universally appropriate. Also, it recognizes that no two individuals will completely agree as to the input data that are appropriate for obtaining an answer to even a single simple question. Accordingly, the program was written from a utilitarian standpoint: it allows working with multiple projections; data inputting is simple to allow game-playing; computation time is short to minimize the cost of 'what if' assessements; and detail is internally carried to allow meaningful analysis. (author)

  4. Fuel cycle forecasting - there are forecasts and there are forecasts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Puechl, K H

    1975-12-01

    The FORECAST-NUCLEAR computer program described recognizes that forecasts are made to answer a variety of questions and, therefore, that no single forecast is universally appropriate. Also, it recognizes that no two individuals will completely agree as to the input data that are appropriate for obtaining an answer to even a single simple question. Accordingly, the program was written from a utilitarian standpoint: it allows working with multiple projections; data inputting is simple to allow game-playing; computation time is short to minimize the cost of 'what if' assessements; and detail is internally carried to allow meaningful analysis.

  5. A hybrid approach for probabilistic forecasting of electricity price

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wan, Can; Xu, Zhao; Wang, Yelei

    2014-01-01

    to the nonstationarities involved in market clearing prices (MCPs), it is rather difficult to accurately predict MCPs in advance. The challenge is getting intensified as more and more renewable energy and other new technologies emerged in smart grids. Therefore transformation from traditional point forecasts...... electricity price forecasting is proposed in this paper. The effectiveness of the proposed hybrid method has been validated through comprehensive tests using real price data from Australian electricity market.......The electricity market plays a key role in realizing the economic prophecy of smart grids. Accurate and reliable electricity market price forecasting is essential to facilitate various decision making activities of market participants in the future smart grid environment. However, due...

  6. Modeling and forecasting petroleum futures volatility

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sadorsky, Perry

    2006-01-01

    Forecasts of oil price volatility are important inputs into macroeconometric models, financial market risk assessment calculations like value at risk, and option pricing formulas for futures contracts. This paper uses several different univariate and multivariate statistical models to estimate forecasts of daily volatility in petroleum futures price returns. The out-of-sample forecasts are evaluated using forecast accuracy tests and market timing tests. The TGARCH model fits well for heating oil and natural gas volatility and the GARCH model fits well for crude oil and unleaded gasoline volatility. Simple moving average models seem to fit well in some cases provided the correct order is chosen. Despite the increased complexity, models like state space, vector autoregression and bivariate GARCH do not perform as well as the single equation GARCH model. Most models out perform a random walk and there is evidence of market timing. Parametric and non-parametric value at risk measures are calculated and compared. Non-parametric models outperform the parametric models in terms of number of exceedences in backtests. These results are useful for anyone needing forecasts of petroleum futures volatility. (author)

  7. Forecasting Value-at-Risk for Crude-Oil Exposures

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Høg, Esben; Tsiaras, Leonidas

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this paper is to forecast and evaluate Value-At-Risk for crude-oil exposures. We examine the performance of a GARCH-type based model with lagged implied volatility entering the variance equation as explanatory variable for the predicted variance. The forecasted Values-at...

  8. Forecasting electricity market pricing using artificial neural networks

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pao, Hsiao-Tien

    2007-01-01

    Electricity price forecasting is extremely important for all market players, in particular for generating companies: in the short term, they must set up bids for the spot market; in the medium term, they have to define contract policies; and in the long term, they must define their expansion plans. For forecasting long-term electricity market pricing, in order to avoid excessive round-off and prediction errors, this paper proposes a new artificial neural network (ANN) with single output node structure by using direct forecasting approach. The potentials of ANNs are investigated by employing a rolling cross validation scheme. Out of sample performance evaluated with three criteria across five forecasting horizons shows that the proposed ANNs are a more robust multi-step ahead forecasting method than autoregressive error models. Moreover, ANN predictions are quite accurate even when the length of the forecast horizon is relatively short or long

  9. Sea Level Forecasts Aggregated from Established Operational Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andy Taylor

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available A system for providing routine seven-day forecasts of sea level observable at tide gauge locations is described and evaluated. Forecast time series are aggregated from well-established operational systems of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; although following some adjustments these systems are only quasi-complimentary. Target applications are routine coastal decision processes under non-extreme conditions. The configuration aims to be relatively robust to operational realities such as version upgrades, data gaps and metadata ambiguities. Forecast skill is evaluated against hourly tide gauge observations. Characteristics of the bias correction term are demonstrated to be primarily static in time, with time varying signals showing regional coherence. This simple approach to exploiting existing complex systems can offer valuable levels of skill at a range of Australian locations. The prospect of interpolation between observation sites and exploitation of lagged-ensemble uncertainty estimates could be meaningfully pursued. Skill characteristics define a benchmark against which new operational sea level forecasting systems can be measured. More generally, an aggregation approach may prove to be optimal for routine sea level forecast services given the physically inhomogeneous processes involved and ability to incorporate ongoing improvements and extensions of source systems.

  10. Skill forecasting from different wind power ensemble prediction methods

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pinson, Pierre; Nielsen, Henrik A; Madsen, Henrik; Kariniotakis, George

    2007-01-01

    This paper presents an investigation on alternative approaches to the providing of uncertainty estimates associated to point predictions of wind generation. Focus is given to skill forecasts in the form of prediction risk indices, aiming at giving a comprehensive signal on the expected level of forecast uncertainty. Ensemble predictions of wind generation are used as input. A proposal for the definition of prediction risk indices is given. Such skill forecasts are based on the dispersion of ensemble members for a single prediction horizon, or over a set of successive look-ahead times. It is shown on the test case of a Danish offshore wind farm how prediction risk indices may be related to several levels of forecast uncertainty (and energy imbalances). Wind power ensemble predictions are derived from the transformation of ECMWF and NCEP ensembles of meteorological variables to power, as well as by a lagged average approach alternative. The ability of risk indices calculated from the various types of ensembles forecasts to resolve among situations with different levels of uncertainty is discussed

  11. Improving Seasonal Crop Monitoring and Forecasting for Soybean and Corn in Iowa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Togliatti, K.; Archontoulis, S.; Dietzel, R.; VanLoocke, A.

    2016-12-01

    Accurately forecasting crop yield in advance of harvest could greatly benefit farmers, however few evaluations have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of forecasting methods. We tested one such method that used a combination of short-term weather forecasting from the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) to predict in season weather variables, such as, maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and radiation at 4 different forecast lengths (2 weeks, 1 week, 3 days, and 0 days). This forecasted weather data along with the current and historic (previous 35 years) data from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet was combined to drive Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) simulations to forecast soybean and corn yields in 2015 and 2016. The goal of this study is to find the forecast length that reduces the variability of simulated yield predictions while also increasing the accuracy of those predictions. APSIM simulations of crop variables were evaluated against bi-weekly field measurements of phenology, biomass, and leaf area index from early and late planted soybean plots located at the Agricultural Engineering and Agronomy Research Farm in central Iowa as well as the Northwest Research Farm in northwestern Iowa. WRF model predictions were evaluated against observed weather data collected at the experimental fields. Maximum temperature was the most accurately predicted variable, followed by minimum temperature and radiation, and precipitation was least accurate according to RMSE values and the number of days that were forecasted within a 20% error of the observed weather. Our analysis indicated that for the majority of months in the growing season the 3 day forecast performed the best. The 1 week forecast came in second and the 2 week forecast was the least accurate for the majority of months. Preliminary results for yield indicate that the 2 week forecast is the least variable of the forecast lengths, however it also is the least accurate

  12. The Determinants of Equity Risk and Their Forecasting Implications: A Quantile Regression Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giovanni Bonaccolto

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Several market and macro-level variables influence the evolution of equity risk in addition to the well-known volatility persistence. However, the impact of those covariates might change depending on the risk level, being different between low and high volatility states. By combining equity risk estimates, obtained from the Realized Range Volatility, corrected for microstructure noise and jumps, and quantile regression methods, we evaluate the forecasting implications of the equity risk determinants in different volatility states and, without distributional assumptions on the realized range innovations, we recover both the points and the conditional distribution forecasts. In addition, we analyse how the the relationships among the involved variables evolve over time, through a rolling window procedure. The results show evidence of the selected variables’ relevant impacts and, particularly during periods of market stress, highlight heterogeneous effects across quantiles.

  13. Propagation of Uncertainty in Bayesian Kernel Models - Application to Multiple-Step Ahead Forecasting

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Quinonero, Joaquin; Girard, Agathe; Larsen, Jan

    2003-01-01

    The object of Bayesian modelling is predictive distribution, which, in a forecasting scenario, enables evaluation of forecasted values and their uncertainties. We focus on reliably estimating the predictive mean and variance of forecasted values using Bayesian kernel based models such as the Gaus......The object of Bayesian modelling is predictive distribution, which, in a forecasting scenario, enables evaluation of forecasted values and their uncertainties. We focus on reliably estimating the predictive mean and variance of forecasted values using Bayesian kernel based models...... such as the Gaussian process and the relevance vector machine. We derive novel analytic expressions for the predictive mean and variance for Gaussian kernel shapes under the assumption of a Gaussian input distribution in the static case, and of a recursive Gaussian predictive density in iterative forecasting...

  14. Forecasting Housing Approvals in Australia: Do Forecasters Herd?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stadtmann, Georg; Pierdzioch; Rülke

    2012-01-01

    Price trends in housing markets may reflect herding of market participants. A natural question is whether such herding, to the extent that it occurred, reflects herding in forecasts of professional forecasters. Using more than 6,000 forecasts of housing approvals for Australia, we did not find...

  15. Forecasting freight flows

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lyk-Jensen, Stéphanie

    2011-01-01

    Trade patterns and transport markets are changing as a result of the growth and globalization of international trade, and forecasting future freight flow has to rely on trade forecasts. Forecasting freight flows is critical for matching infrastructure supply to demand and for assessing investment...... constitute a valuable input to freight models for forecasting future capacity problems.......Trade patterns and transport markets are changing as a result of the growth and globalization of international trade, and forecasting future freight flow has to rely on trade forecasts. Forecasting freight flows is critical for matching infrastructure supply to demand and for assessing investment...

  16. Forecast Method of Solar Irradiance with Just-In-Time Modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suzuki, Takanobu; Goto, Yusuke; Terazono, Takahiro; Wakao, Shinji; Oozeki, Takashi

    PV power output mainly depends on the solar irradiance which is affected by various meteorological factors. So, it is required to predict solar irradiance in the future for the efficient operation of PV systems. In this paper, we develop a novel approach for solar irradiance forecast, in which we introduce to combine the black-box model (JIT Modeling) with the physical model (GPV data). We investigate the predictive accuracy of solar irradiance over wide controlled-area of each electric power company by utilizing the measured data on the 44 observation points throughout Japan offered by JMA and the 64 points around Kanto by NEDO. Finally, we propose the application forecast method of solar irradiance to the point which is difficulty in compiling the database. And we consider the influence of different GPV default time on solar irradiance prediction.

  17. Online short-term solar power forecasting

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bacher, Peder; Madsen, Henrik; Nielsen, Henrik Aalborg

    2009-01-01

    This paper describes a new approach to online forecasting of power production from PV systems. The method is suited to online forecasting in many applications and in this paper it is used to predict hourly values of solar power for horizons of up to 36 hours. The data used is fifteen......-minute observations of solar power from 21 PV systems located on rooftops in a small village in Denmark. The suggested method is a two-stage method where first a statistical normalization of the solar power is obtained using a clear sky model. The clear sky model is found using statistical smoothing techniques....... Then forecasts of the normalized solar power are calculated using adaptive linear time series models. Both autoregressive (AR) and AR with exogenous input (ARX) models are evaluated, where the latter takes numerical weather predictions (NWPs) as input. The results indicate that for forecasts up to two hours...

  18. Forecasting wind power production from a wind farm using the RAMS model

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tiriolo, L.; Torcasio, R. C.; Montesanti, S.

    2015-01-01

    of the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), whose horizontal resolution over Central Italy is about 25 km at the time considered in this paper. Because wind observations were not available for the site, the power curve for the whole wind farm was derived from the ECMWF wind operational analyses available......The importance of wind power forecast is commonly recognized because it represents a useful tool for grid integration and facilitates the energy trading. This work considers an example of power forecast for a wind farm in the Apennines in Central Italy. The orography around the site is complex...... and the horizontal resolution of the wind forecast has an important role. To explore this point we compared the performance of two 48 h wind power forecasts using the winds predicted by the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) for the year 2011. The two forecasts differ only for the horizontal resolution...

  19. Essays on financial analysts' forecasts

    OpenAIRE

    Rodriguez, Marius del Giudice

    2006-01-01

    This dissertation contains three self-contained chapters dealing with specific aspects of financial analysts' earnings forecasts. After recent accounting scandals, much attention has turned to the incentives present in the career of professional financial analysts. The literature points to several reasons why financial analysts behave overoptimistically when providing their predictions. In particular, analysts may wish to maintain good relations with firm management, to please the underwriter...

  20. Operational Earthquake Forecasting: Proposed Guidelines for Implementation (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, T. H.

    2010-12-01

    The goal of operational earthquake forecasting (OEF) is to provide the public with authoritative information about how seismic hazards are changing with time. During periods of high seismic activity, short-term earthquake forecasts based on empirical statistical models can attain nominal probability gains in excess of 100 relative to the long-term forecasts used in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). Prospective experiments are underway by the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) to evaluate the reliability and skill of these seismicity-based forecasts in a variety of tectonic environments. How such information should be used for civil protection is by no means clear, because even with hundredfold increases, the probabilities of large earthquakes typically remain small, rarely exceeding a few percent over forecasting intervals of days or weeks. Civil protection agencies have been understandably cautious in implementing formal procedures for OEF in this sort of “low-probability environment.” Nevertheless, the need to move more quickly towards OEF has been underscored by recent experiences, such as the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake sequence and other seismic crises in which an anxious public has been confused by informal, inconsistent earthquake forecasts. Whether scientists like it or not, rising public expectations for real-time information, accelerated by the use of social media, will require civil protection agencies to develop sources of authoritative information about the short-term earthquake probabilities. In this presentation, I will discuss guidelines for the implementation of OEF informed by my experience on the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, convened by CalEMA, and the International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting, convened by the Italian government following the L’Aquila disaster. (a) Public sources of information on short-term probabilities should be authoritative, scientific, open, and

  1. ENSEMBLE methods to reconcile disparate national long range dispersion forecasting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mikkelsen, T; Galmarini, S; Bianconi, R; French, S [eds.

    2003-11-01

    ENSEMBLE is a web-based decision support system for real-time exchange and evaluation of national long-range dispersion forecasts of nuclear releases with cross-boundary consequences. The system is developed with the purpose to reconcile among disparate national forecasts for long-range dispersion. ENSEMBLE addresses the problem of achieving a common coherent strategy across European national emergency management when national long-range dispersion forecasts differ from one another during an accidental atmospheric release of radioactive material. A series of new decision-making 'ENSEMBLE' procedures and Web-based software evaluation and exchange tools have been created for real-time reconciliation and harmonisation of real-time dispersion forecasts from meteorological and emergency centres across Europe during an accident. The new ENSEMBLE software tools is available to participating national emergency and meteorological forecasting centres, which may choose to integrate them directly into operational emergency information systems, or possibly use them as a basis for future system development. (au)

  2. ENSEMBLE methods to reconcile disparate national long range dispersion forecasting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mikkelsen, T.; Galmarini, S.; Bianconi, R.; French, S. (eds.)

    2003-11-01

    ENSEMBLE is a web-based decision support system for real-time exchange and evaluation of national long-range dispersion forecasts of nuclear releases with cross-boundary consequences. The system is developed with the purpose to reconcile among disparate national forecasts for long-range dispersion. ENSEMBLE addresses the problem of achieving a common coherent strategy across European national emergency management when national long-range dispersion forecasts differ from one another during an accidental atmospheric release of radioactive material. A series of new decision-making 'ENSEMBLE' procedures and Web-based software evaluation and exchange tools have been created for real-time reconciliation and harmonisation of real-time dispersion forecasts from meteorological and emergency centres across Europe during an accident. The new ENSEMBLE software tools is available to participating national emergency and meteorological forecasting centres, which may choose to integrate them directly into operational emergency information systems, or possibly use them as a basis for future system development. (au)

  3. Peak Wind Tool for General Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barrett, Joe H., III

    2010-01-01

    The expected peak wind speed of the day is an important forecast element in the 45th Weather Squadron's (45 WS) daily 24-Hour and Weekly Planning Forecasts. The forecasts are used for ground and space launch operations at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The 45 WS also issues wind advisories for KSC/CCAFS when they expect wind gusts to meet or exceed 25 kt, 35 kt and 50 kt thresholds at any level from the surface to 300 ft. The 45 WS forecasters have indicated peak wind speeds are challenging to forecast, particularly in the cool season months of October - April. In Phase I of this task, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) developed a tool to help the 45 WS forecast non-convective winds at KSC/CCAFS for the 24-hour period of 0800 to 0800 local time. The tool was delivered as a Microsoft Excel graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI displayed the forecast of peak wind speed, 5-minute average wind speed at the time of the peak wind, timing of the peak wind and probability the peak speed would meet or exceed 25 kt, 35 kt and 50 kt. For the current task (Phase II ), the 45 WS requested additional observations be used for the creation of the forecast equations by expanding the period of record (POR). Additional parameters were evaluated as predictors, including wind speeds between 500 ft and 3000 ft, static stability classification, Bulk Richardson Number, mixing depth, vertical wind shear, temperature inversion strength and depth and wind direction. Using a verification data set, the AMU compared the performance of the Phase I and II prediction methods. Just as in Phase I, the tool was delivered as a Microsoft Excel GUI. The 45 WS requested the tool also be available in the Meteorological Interactive Data Display System (MIDDS). The AMU first expanded the POR by two years by adding tower observations, surface observations and CCAFS (XMR) soundings for the cool season months of March 2007 to April 2009. The POR was expanded

  4. Probabilistic Wind Power Forecasting with Hybrid Artificial Neural Networks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wan, Can; Song, Yonghua; Xu, Zhao

    2016-01-01

    probabilities of prediction errors provide an alternative yet effective solution. This article proposes a hybrid artificial neural network approach to generate prediction intervals of wind power. An extreme learning machine is applied to conduct point prediction of wind power and estimate model uncertainties...... via a bootstrap technique. Subsequently, the maximum likelihood estimation method is employed to construct a distinct neural network to estimate the noise variance of forecasting results. The proposed approach has been tested on multi-step forecasting of high-resolution (10-min) wind power using...... actual wind power data from Denmark. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid artificial neural network approach is effective and efficient for probabilistic forecasting of wind power and has high potential in practical applications....

  5. Forecasting Skill

    Science.gov (United States)

    1981-01-01

    for the third and fourth day precipitation forecasts. A marked improvement was shown for the consensus 24 hour precipitation forecast, and small... Zuckerberg (1980) found a small long term skill increase in forecasts of heavy snow events for nine eastern cities. Other National Weather Service...and maximum temperature) are each awarded marks 2, 1, or 0 according to whether the forecast is correct, 8 - *- -**■*- ———"—- - -■ t0m 1 MM—IB I

  6. Interactive Vegetation Phenology, Soil Moisture, and Monthly Temperature Forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koster, R. D.; Walker, G. K.

    2015-01-01

    The time scales that characterize the variations of vegetation phenology are generally much longer than those that characterize atmospheric processes. The explicit modeling of phenological processes in an atmospheric forecast system thus has the potential to provide skill to subseasonal or seasonal forecasts. We examine this possibility here using a forecast system fitted with a dynamic vegetation phenology model. We perform three experiments, each consisting of 128 independent warm-season monthly forecasts: 1) an experiment in which both soil moisture states and carbon states (e.g., those determining leaf area index) are initialized realistically, 2) an experiment in which the carbon states are prescribed to climatology throughout the forecasts, and 3) an experiment in which both the carbon and soil moisture states are prescribed to climatology throughout the forecasts. Evaluating the monthly forecasts of air temperature in each ensemble against observations, as well as quantifying the inherent predictability of temperature within each ensemble, shows that dynamic phenology can indeed contribute positively to subseasonal forecasts, though only to a small extent, with an impact dwarfed by that of soil moisture.

  7. Empirical evaluation of a forecasting model for successful facilitation ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    During 2000 the annual Facilitator Customer Satisfaction Survey was ... the forecasting model is successful concerning the CSI value and a high positive linear ... namely that of human behaviour to incorporate other influences than just the ...

  8. An evaluation of the Canadian global meteorological ensemble prediction system for short-term hydrological forecasting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    F. Anctil

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available Hydrological forecasting consists in the assessment of future streamflow. Current deterministic forecasts do not give any information concerning the uncertainty, which might be limiting in a decision-making process. Ensemble forecasts are expected to fill this gap.

    In July 2007, the Meteorological Service of Canada has improved its ensemble prediction system, which has been operational since 1998. It uses the GEM model to generate a 20-member ensemble on a 100 km grid, at mid-latitudes. This improved system is used for the first time for hydrological ensemble predictions. Five watersheds in Quebec (Canada are studied: Chaudière, Châteauguay, Du Nord, Kénogami and Du Lièvre. An interesting 17-day rainfall event has been selected in October 2007. Forecasts are produced in a 3 h time step for a 3-day forecast horizon. The deterministic forecast is also available and it is compared with the ensemble ones. In order to correct the bias of the ensemble, an updating procedure has been applied to the output data. Results showed that ensemble forecasts are more skilful than the deterministic ones, as measured by the Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS, especially for 72 h forecasts. However, the hydrological ensemble forecasts are under dispersed: a situation that improves with the increasing length of the prediction horizons. We conjecture that this is due in part to the fact that uncertainty in the initial conditions of the hydrological model is not taken into account.

  9. Real-time bias-adjusted O 3 and PM 2.5 air quality index forecasts and their performance evaluations over the continental United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kang, Daiwen; Mathur, Rohit; Trivikrama Rao, S.

    2010-06-01

    The National Air Quality Forecast Capacity (NAQFC) system, which links NOAA's North American Mesoscale (NAM) meteorological model with EPA's Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, provided operational ozone (O 3) and experimental fine particular matter (PM 2.5) forecasts over the continental United States (CONUS) during 2008. This paper describes the implementation of a real-time Kalman Filter (KF) bias-adjustment technique to improve the accuracy of O 3 and PM 2.5 forecasts at discrete monitoring locations. The operational surface-level O 3 and PM 2.5 forecasts from the NAQFC system were post-processed by the KF bias-adjusted technique using near real-time hourly O 3 and PM 2.5 observations obtained from EPA's AIRNow measurement network. The KF bias-adjusted forecasts were created daily, providing 24-h hourly bias-adjusted forecasts for O 3 and PM 2.5 at all AIRNow monitoring sites within the CONUS domain. The bias-adjustment post-processing implemented in this study requires minimal computational cost; requiring less than 10 min of CPU on a single processor Linux machine to generate 24-h hourly bias-adjusted forecasts over the entire CONUS domain. The results show that the real-time KF bias-adjusted forecasts for both O 3 and PM 2.5 have performed as well as or even better than the previous studies when the same technique was applied to the historical O 3 and PM 2.5 time series from archived AQF in earlier years. Compared to the raw forecasts, the KF forecasts displayed significant improvement in the daily maximum 8-h O 3 and daily mean PM 2.5 forecasts in terms of both discrete (i.e., reduced errors, increased correlation coefficients, and index of agreement) and categorical (increased hit rate and decreased false alarm ratio) evaluation metrics at almost all locations during the study period in 2008.

  10. Forecasting infectious disease emergence subject to seasonal forcing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Paige B; O'Dea, Eamon B; Rohani, Pejman; Drake, John M

    2017-09-06

    Despite high vaccination coverage, many childhood infections pose a growing threat to human populations. Accurate disease forecasting would be of tremendous value to public health. Forecasting disease emergence using early warning signals (EWS) is possible in non-seasonal models of infectious diseases. Here, we assessed whether EWS also anticipate disease emergence in seasonal models. We simulated the dynamics of an immunizing infectious pathogen approaching the tipping point to disease endemicity. To explore the effect of seasonality on the reliability of early warning statistics, we varied the amplitude of fluctuations around the average transmission. We proposed and analyzed two new early warning signals based on the wavelet spectrum. We measured the reliability of the early warning signals depending on the strength of their trend preceding the tipping point and then calculated the Area Under the Curve (AUC) statistic. Early warning signals were reliable when disease transmission was subject to seasonal forcing. Wavelet-based early warning signals were as reliable as other conventional early warning signals. We found that removing seasonal trends, prior to analysis, did not improve early warning statistics uniformly. Early warning signals anticipate the onset of critical transitions for infectious diseases which are subject to seasonal forcing. Wavelet-based early warning statistics can also be used to forecast infectious disease.

  11. An artificial neural network model for rainfall forecasting in Bangkok, Thailand

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    N. Q. Hung

    2009-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a new approach using an Artificial Neural Network technique to improve rainfall forecast performance. A real world case study was set up in Bangkok; 4 years of hourly data from 75 rain gauge stations in the area were used to develop the ANN model. The developed ANN model is being applied for real time rainfall forecasting and flood management in Bangkok, Thailand. Aimed at providing forecasts in a near real time schedule, different network types were tested with different kinds of input information. Preliminary tests showed that a generalized feedforward ANN model using hyperbolic tangent transfer function achieved the best generalization of rainfall. Especially, the use of a combination of meteorological parameters (relative humidity, air pressure, wet bulb temperature and cloudiness, the rainfall at the point of forecasting and rainfall at the surrounding stations, as an input data, advanced ANN model to apply with continuous data containing rainy and non-rainy period, allowed model to issue forecast at any moment. Additionally, forecasts by ANN model were compared to the convenient approach namely simple persistent method. Results show that ANN forecasts have superiority over the ones obtained by the persistent model. Rainfall forecasts for Bangkok from 1 to 3 h ahead were highly satisfactory. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the most important input parameter besides rainfall itself is the wet bulb temperature in forecasting rainfall.

  12. Dispersion Modeling Using Ensemble Forecasts Compared to ETEX Measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Straume, Anne Grete; N'dri Koffi, Ernest; Nodop, Katrin

    1998-11-01

    Numerous numerical models are developed to predict long-range transport of hazardous air pollution in connection with accidental releases. When evaluating and improving such a model, it is important to detect uncertainties connected to the meteorological input data. A Lagrangian dispersion model, the Severe Nuclear Accident Program, is used here to investigate the effect of errors in the meteorological input data due to analysis error. An ensemble forecast, produced at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, is then used as model input. The ensemble forecast members are generated by perturbing the initial meteorological fields of the weather forecast. The perturbations are calculated from singular vectors meant to represent possible forecast developments generated by instabilities in the atmospheric flow during the early part of the forecast. The instabilities are generated by errors in the analyzed fields. Puff predictions from the dispersion model, using ensemble forecast input, are compared, and a large spread in the predicted puff evolutions is found. This shows that the quality of the meteorological input data is important for the success of the dispersion model. In order to evaluate the dispersion model, the calculations are compared with measurements from the European Tracer Experiment. The model manages to predict the measured puff evolution concerning shape and time of arrival to a fairly high extent, up to 60 h after the start of the release. The modeled puff is still too narrow in the advection direction.

  13. Waste Information Management System with Integrated Transportation Forecast Data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Upadhyay, H.; Quintero, W.; Shoffner, P.; Lagos, L.

    2009-01-01

    The Waste Information Management System with Integrated Transportation Forecast Data was developed to support the Department of Energy (DOE) mandated accelerated cleanup program. The schedule compression required close coordination and a comprehensive review and prioritization of the barriers that impeded treatment and disposition of the waste streams at each site. Many issues related to site waste treatment and disposal were potential critical path issues under the accelerated schedules. In order to facilitate accelerated cleanup initiatives, waste managers at DOE field sites and at DOE Headquarters in Washington, D.C., needed timely waste forecast and transportation information regarding the volumes and types of waste that would be generated by the DOE sites over the next 40 years. Each local DOE site has historically collected, organized, and displayed site waste forecast information in separate and unique systems. However, waste and shipment information from all sites needed a common application to allow interested parties to understand and view the complete complex-wide picture. The Waste Information Management System with Integrated Transportation Forecast Data allows identification of total forecasted waste volumes, material classes, disposition sites, choke points, technological or regulatory barriers to treatment and disposal, along with forecasted waste transportation information by rail, truck and inter-modal shipments. The Applied Research Center (ARC) at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida, has deployed the web-based forecast and transportation system and is responsible for updating the waste forecast and transportation data on a regular basis to ensure the long-term viability and value of this system. (authors)

  14. Online probabilistic learning with an ensemble of forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thorey, Jean; Mallet, Vivien; Chaussin, Christophe

    2016-04-01

    Our objective is to produce a calibrated weighted ensemble to forecast a univariate time series. In addition to a meteorological ensemble of forecasts, we rely on observations or analyses of the target variable. The celebrated Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) is used to evaluate the probabilistic forecasts. However applying the CRPS on weighted empirical distribution functions (deriving from the weighted ensemble) may introduce a bias because of which minimizing the CRPS does not produce the optimal weights. Thus we propose an unbiased version of the CRPS which relies on clusters of members and is strictly proper. We adapt online learning methods for the minimization of the CRPS. These methods generate the weights associated to the members in the forecasted empirical distribution function. The weights are updated before each forecast step using only past observations and forecasts. Our learning algorithms provide the theoretical guarantee that, in the long run, the CRPS of the weighted forecasts is at least as good as the CRPS of any weighted ensemble with weights constant in time. In particular, the performance of our forecast is better than that of any subset ensemble with uniform weights. A noteworthy advantage of our algorithm is that it does not require any assumption on the distributions of the observations and forecasts, both for the application and for the theoretical guarantee to hold. As application example on meteorological forecasts for photovoltaic production integration, we show that our algorithm generates a calibrated probabilistic forecast, with significant performance improvements on probabilistic diagnostic tools (the CRPS, the reliability diagram and the rank histogram).

  15. Forecasting the student–professor matches that result in unusually effective teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gross, Jennifer; Lakey, Brian; Lucas, Jessica L; LaCross, Ryan; R Plotkowski, Andrea; Winegard, Bo

    2015-01-01

    Background Two important influences on students' evaluations of teaching are relationship and professor effects. Relationship effects reflect unique matches between students and professors such that some professors are unusually effective for some students, but not for others. Professor effects reflect inter-rater agreement that some professors are more effective than others, on average across students. Aims We attempted to forecast students' evaluations of live lectures from brief, video-recorded teaching trailers. Sample Participants were 145 college students (74% female) enrolled in introductory psychology courses at a public university in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Methods Students viewed trailers early in the semester and attended live lectures months later. Because subgroups of students viewed the same professors, statistical analyses could isolate professor and relationship effects. Results Evaluations were influenced strongly by relationship and professor effects, and students' evaluations of live lectures could be forecasted from students' evaluations of teaching trailers. That is, we could forecast the individual students who would respond unusually well to a specific professor (relationship effects). We could also forecast which professors elicited better evaluations in live lectures, on average across students (professor effects). Professors who elicited unusually good evaluations in some students also elicited better memory for lectures in those students. Conclusions It appears possible to forecast relationship and professor effects on teaching evaluations by presenting brief teaching trailers to students. Thus, it might be possible to develop online recommender systems to help match students and professors so that unusually effective teaching emerges. PMID:24953773

  16. National Forecast Charts

    Science.gov (United States)

    code. Press enter or select the go button to submit request Local forecast by "City, St" or Prediction Center on Twitter NCEP Quarterly Newsletter WPC Home Analyses and Forecasts National Forecast to all federal, state, and local government web resources and services. National Forecast Charts

  17. A Wind Forecasting System for Energy Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courtney, Jennifer; Lynch, Peter; Sweeney, Conor

    2010-05-01

    Accurate forecasting of available energy is crucial for the efficient management and use of wind power in the national power grid. With energy output critically dependent upon wind strength there is a need to reduce the errors associated wind forecasting. The objective of this research is to get the best possible wind forecasts for the wind energy industry. To achieve this goal, three methods are being applied. First, a mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) model called WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) is being used to predict wind values over Ireland. Currently, a gird resolution of 10km is used and higher model resolutions are being evaluated to establish whether they are economically viable given the forecast skill improvement they produce. Second, the WRF model is being used in conjunction with ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) ensemble forecasts to produce a probabilistic weather forecasting product. Due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, a single, deterministic weather forecast can only have limited skill. The ECMWF ensemble methods produce an ensemble of 51 global forecasts, twice a day, by perturbing initial conditions of a 'control' forecast which is the best estimate of the initial state of the atmosphere. This method provides an indication of the reliability of the forecast and a quantitative basis for probabilistic forecasting. The limitation of ensemble forecasting lies in the fact that the perturbed model runs behave differently under different weather patterns and each model run is equally likely to be closest to the observed weather situation. Models have biases, and involve assumptions about physical processes and forcing factors such as underlying topography. Third, Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) is being applied to the output from the ensemble forecasts in order to statistically post-process the results and achieve a better wind forecasting system. BMA is a promising technique that will offer calibrated

  18. Generalization of information-based concepts in forecast verification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tödter, J.; Ahrens, B.

    2012-04-01

    This work deals with information-theoretical methods in probabilistic forecast verification. Recent findings concerning the Ignorance Score are shortly reviewed, then the generalization to continuous forecasts is shown. For ensemble forecasts, the presented measures can be calculated exactly. The Brier Score (BS) and its generalizations to the multi-categorical Ranked Probability Score (RPS) and to the Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) are the prominent verification measures for probabilistic forecasts. Particularly, their decompositions into measures quantifying the reliability, resolution and uncertainty of the forecasts are attractive. Information theory sets up the natural framework for forecast verification. Recently, it has been shown that the BS is a second-order approximation of the information-based Ignorance Score (IGN), which also contains easily interpretable components and can also be generalized to a ranked version (RIGN). Here, the IGN, its generalizations and decompositions are systematically discussed in analogy to the variants of the BS. Additionally, a Continuous Ranked IGN (CRIGN) is introduced in analogy to the CRPS. The applicability and usefulness of the conceptually appealing CRIGN is illustrated, together with an algorithm to evaluate its components reliability, resolution, and uncertainty for ensemble-generated forecasts. This is also directly applicable to the more traditional CRPS.

  19. Forecasting telecommunication new service demand by analogy method and combined forecast

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Feng-Jenq

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available In the modeling forecast field, we are usually faced with the more difficult problems of forecasting market demand for a new service or product. A new service or product is defined as that there is absence of historical data in this new market. We hardly use models to execute the forecasting work directly. In the Taiwan telecommunication industry, after liberalization in 1996, there are many new services opened continually. For optimal investment, it is necessary that the operators, who have been granted the concessions and licenses, forecast this new service within their planning process. Though there are some methods to solve or avoid this predicament, in this paper, we will propose one forecasting procedure that integrates the concept of analogy method and the idea of combined forecast to generate new service forecast. In view of the above, the first half of this paper describes the procedure of analogy method and the approach of combined forecast, and the second half provides the case of forecasting low-tier phone demand in Taiwan to illustrate this procedure's feasibility.

  20. Spatial Ensemble Postprocessing of Precipitation Forecasts Using High Resolution Analyses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lang, Moritz N.; Schicker, Irene; Kann, Alexander; Wang, Yong

    2017-04-01

    Ensemble prediction systems are designed to account for errors or uncertainties in the initial and boundary conditions, imperfect parameterizations, etc. However, due to sampling errors and underestimation of the model errors, these ensemble forecasts tend to be underdispersive, and to lack both reliability and sharpness. To overcome such limitations, statistical postprocessing methods are commonly applied to these forecasts. In this study, a full-distributional spatial post-processing method is applied to short-range precipitation forecasts over Austria using Standardized Anomaly Model Output Statistics (SAMOS). Following Stauffer et al. (2016), observation and forecast fields are transformed into standardized anomalies by subtracting a site-specific climatological mean and dividing by the climatological standard deviation. Due to the need of fitting only a single regression model for the whole domain, the SAMOS framework provides a computationally inexpensive method to create operationally calibrated probabilistic forecasts for any arbitrary location or for all grid points in the domain simultaneously. Taking advantage of the INCA system (Integrated Nowcasting through Comprehensive Analysis), high resolution analyses are used for the computation of the observed climatology and for model training. The INCA system operationally combines station measurements and remote sensing data into real-time objective analysis fields at 1 km-horizontal resolution and 1 h-temporal resolution. The precipitation forecast used in this study is obtained from a limited area model ensemble prediction system also operated by ZAMG. The so called ALADIN-LAEF provides, by applying a multi-physics approach, a 17-member forecast at a horizontal resolution of 10.9 km and a temporal resolution of 1 hour. The performed SAMOS approach statistically combines the in-house developed high resolution analysis and ensemble prediction system. The station-based validation of 6 hour precipitation sums

  1. Exploring the interactions between forecast accuracy, risk perception and perceived forecast reliability in reservoir operator's decision to use forecast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shafiee-Jood, M.; Cai, X.

    2017-12-01

    Advances in streamflow forecasts at different time scales offer a promise for proactive flood management and improved risk management. Despite the huge potential, previous studies have found that water resources managers are often not willing to incorporate streamflow forecasts information in decisions making, particularly in risky situations. While low accuracy of forecasts information is often cited as the main reason, some studies have found that implementation of streamflow forecasts sometimes is impeded by institutional obstacles and behavioral factors (e.g., risk perception). In fact, a seminal study by O'Connor et al. (2005) found that risk perception is the strongest determinant of forecast use while managers' perception about forecast reliability is not significant. In this study, we aim to address this issue again. However, instead of using survey data and regression analysis, we develop a theoretical framework to assess the user-perceived value of streamflow forecasts. The framework includes a novel behavioral component which incorporates both risk perception and perceived forecast reliability. The framework is then used in a hypothetical problem where reservoir operator should react to probabilistic flood forecasts with different reliabilities. The framework will allow us to explore the interactions among risk perception and perceived forecast reliability, and among the behavioral components and information accuracy. The findings will provide insights to improve the usability of flood forecasts information through better communication and education.

  2. Verification of space weather forecasts at the UK Met Office

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bingham, S.; Sharpe, M.; Jackson, D.; Murray, S.

    2017-12-01

    The UK Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC) has produced space weather guidance twice a day since its official opening in 2014. Guidance includes 4-day probabilistic forecasts of X-ray flares, geomagnetic storms, high-energy electron events and high-energy proton events. Evaluation of such forecasts is important to forecasters, stakeholders, model developers and users to understand the performance of these forecasts and also strengths and weaknesses to enable further development. Met Office terrestrial near real-time verification systems have been adapted to provide verification of X-ray flare and geomagnetic storm forecasts. Verification is updated daily to produce Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and Reliability diagrams, and rolling Ranked Probability Skill Scores (RPSSs) thus providing understanding of forecast performance and skill. Results suggest that the MOSWOC issued X-ray flare forecasts are usually not statistically significantly better than a benchmark climatological forecast (where the climatology is based on observations from the previous few months). By contrast, the issued geomagnetic storm activity forecast typically performs better against this climatological benchmark.

  3. The RAPIDD ebola forecasting challenge: Synthesis and lessons learnt

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cécile Viboud

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Infectious disease forecasting is gaining traction in the public health community; however, limited systematic comparisons of model performance exist. Here we present the results of a synthetic forecasting challenge inspired by the West African Ebola crisis in 2014–2015 and involving 16 international academic teams and US government agencies, and compare the predictive performance of 8 independent modeling approaches. Challenge participants were invited to predict 140 epidemiological targets across 5 different time points of 4 synthetic Ebola outbreaks, each involving different levels of interventions and “fog of war” in outbreak data made available for predictions. Prediction targets included 1–4 week-ahead case incidences, outbreak size, peak timing, and several natural history parameters. With respect to weekly case incidence targets, ensemble predictions based on a Bayesian average of the 8 participating models outperformed any individual model and did substantially better than a null auto-regressive model. There was no relationship between model complexity and prediction accuracy; however, the top performing models for short-term weekly incidence were reactive models with few parameters, fitted to a short and recent part of the outbreak. Individual model outputs and ensemble predictions improved with data accuracy and availability; by the second time point, just before the peak of the epidemic, estimates of final size were within 20% of the target. The 4th challenge scenario − mirroring an uncontrolled Ebola outbreak with substantial data reporting noise − was poorly predicted by all modeling teams. Overall, this synthetic forecasting challenge provided a deep understanding of model performance under controlled data and epidemiological conditions. We recommend such “peace time” forecasting challenges as key elements to improve coordination and inspire collaboration between modeling groups ahead of the next pandemic threat

  4. Evaluation for Long Term PM10 Concentration Forecasting using Multi Linear Regression (MLR and Principal Component Regression (PCR Models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samsuri Abdullah

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Air pollution in Peninsular Malaysia is dominated by particulate matter which is demonstrated by having the highest Air Pollution Index (API value compared to the other pollutants at most part of the country. Particulate Matter (PM10 forecasting models development is crucial because it allows the authority and citizens of a community to take necessary actions to limit their exposure to harmful levels of particulates pollution and implement protection measures to significantly improve air quality on designated locations. This study aims in improving the ability of MLR using PCs inputs for PM10 concentrations forecasting. Daily observations for PM10 in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia from January 2003 till December 2011 were utilized to forecast PM10 concentration levels. MLR and PCR (using PCs input models were developed and the performance was evaluated using RMSE, NAE and IA. Results revealed that PCR performed better than MLR due to the implementation of PCA which reduce intricacy and eliminate data multi-collinearity.

  5. Evaluating the performance of the Lee-Carter method and its variants in modelling and forecasting Malaysian mortality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zakiyatussariroh, W. H. Wan; Said, Z. Mohammad; Norazan, M. R.

    2014-12-01

    This study investigated the performance of the Lee-Carter (LC) method and it variants in modeling and forecasting Malaysia mortality. These include the original LC, the Lee-Miller (LM) variant and the Booth-Maindonald-Smith (BMS) variant. These methods were evaluated using Malaysia's mortality data which was measured based on age specific death rates (ASDR) for 1971 to 2009 for overall population while those for 1980-2009 were used in separate models for male and female population. The performance of the variants has been examined in term of the goodness of fit of the models and forecasting accuracy. Comparison was made based on several criteria namely, mean square error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute deviation (MAD) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The results indicate that BMS method was outperformed in in-sample fitting for overall population and when the models were fitted separately for male and female population. However, in the case of out-sample forecast accuracy, BMS method only best when the data were fitted to overall population. When the data were fitted separately for male and female, LCnone performed better for male population and LM method is good for female population.

  6. Enhanced short-term wind power forecasting and value to grid operations. The wind forecasting improvement project

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Orwig, Kirsten D. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States). Transmission Grid Integration; Benjamin, Stan; Wilczak, James; Marquis, Melinda [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.; Stern, Andrew [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD (United States); Clark, Charlton; Cline, Joel [U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC (United States). Wind and Water Power Program; Finley, Catherine [WindLogics, Grand Rapids, MN (United States); Freedman, Jeffrey [AWS Truepower, Albany, NY (United States)

    2012-07-01

    The current state-of-the-art wind power forecasting in the 0- to 6-h timeframe has levels of uncertainty that are adding increased costs and risks to the U.S. electrical grid. It is widely recognized within the electrical grid community that improvements to these forecasts could greatly reduce the costs and risks associated with integrating higher penetrations of wind energy. The U.S. Department of Energy has sponsored a research campaign in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and private industry to foster improvements in wind power forecasting. The research campaign involves a three-pronged approach: (1) a one-year field measurement campaign within two regions; (2) enhancement of NOAA's experimental 3-km High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model by assimilating the data from the field campaign; and (3) evaluation of the economic and reliability benefits of improved forecasts to grid operators. This paper and presentation provide an overview of the regions selected, instrumentation deployed, data quality and control, assimilation of data into HRRR, and preliminary results of HRRR performance analysis. (orig.)

  7. Environmental noise forecasting based on support vector machine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Yumei; Zan, Xinwu; Chen, Tianyi; Xiang, Shihan

    2018-01-01

    As an important pollution source, the noise pollution is always the researcher's focus. Especially in recent years, the noise pollution is seriously harmful to the human beings' environment, so the research about the noise pollution is a very hot spot. Some noise monitoring technologies and monitoring systems are applied in the environmental noise test, measurement and evaluation. But, the research about the environmental noise forecasting is weak. In this paper, a real-time environmental noise monitoring system is introduced briefly. This monitoring system is working in Mianyang City, Sichuan Province. It is monitoring and collecting the environmental noise about more than 20 enterprises in this district. Based on the large amount of noise data, the noise forecasting by the Support Vector Machine (SVM) is studied in detail. Compared with the time series forecasting model and the artificial neural network forecasting model, the SVM forecasting model has some advantages such as the smaller data size, the higher precision and stability. The noise forecasting results based on the SVM can provide the important and accuracy reference to the prevention and control of the environmental noise.

  8. Forecasting short-term wind farm production in complex terrain. Volume 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    LeBlanc, M.

    2005-01-01

    Wind energy forecasting adds financial value to wind farms and may soon become a regulatory requirement. A robust information technology system is essential for addressing industry demands. Various forecasting methodologies for short-term wind production in complex terrain were presented. Numerical weather predictions were discussed with reference to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system site measurements. Forecasting methods using wind speed, direction, temperature and pressure, as well as issues concerning statistical modelling were presented. Model output statistics and neural networks were reviewed, as well as significant components of error. Results from a Garrad Hassan forecaster with a European wind farm were presented, including wind speed evaluation, and forecast horizon for T + 1 hours, T + 12 hours, and T + 36 hours. It was suggested that buy prices often reflect the cost of under-prediction, and that forecasting has more potential where the spread is greatest. Accurate T + 19 hours to T + 31 hours could enable participation in the day-ahead market, which is less volatile and prices are usually better. Estimates of possible profits per annum through the use of GH forecaster power predictions were presented, calculated over and above spilling power to the grid. It was concluded that accurate forecasts combined with certainty evaluation enables the optimization of wind energy in the market, and is applicable to a wide range of weather regimes and terrain types. It was suggested that site feedback is essential for good forecasts at short horizons, and that the value of forecasting is dependent on the market. refs., tabs., figs

  9. MACROECONOMIC FORECASTING USING BAYESIAN VECTOR AUTOREGRESSIVE APPROACH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. Tutberidze

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available There are many arguments that can be advanced to support the forecasting activities of business entities. The underlying argument in favor of forecasting is that managerial decisions are significantly dependent on proper evaluation of future trends as market conditions are constantly changing and require a detailed analysis of future dynamics. The article discusses the importance of using reasonable macro-econometric tool by suggesting the idea of conditional forecasting through a Vector Autoregressive (VAR modeling framework. Under this framework, a macroeconomic model for Georgian economy is constructed with the few variables believed to be shaping business environment. Based on the model, forecasts of macroeconomic variables are produced, and three types of scenarios are analyzed - a baseline and two alternative ones. The results of the study provide confirmatory evidence that suggested methodology is adequately addressing the research phenomenon and can be used widely by business entities in responding their strategic and operational planning challenges. Given this set-up, it is shown empirically that Bayesian Vector Autoregressive approach provides reasonable forecasts for the variables of interest.

  10. Adaptively smoothed seismicity earthquake forecasts for Italy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan Y. Kagan

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available We present a model for estimation of the probabilities of future earthquakes of magnitudes m ≥ 4.95 in Italy. This model is a modified version of that proposed for California, USA, by Helmstetter et al. [2007] and Werner et al. [2010a], and it approximates seismicity using a spatially heterogeneous, temporally homogeneous Poisson point process. The temporal, spatial and magnitude dimensions are entirely decoupled. Magnitudes are independently and identically distributed according to a tapered Gutenberg-Richter magnitude distribution. We have estimated the spatial distribution of future seismicity by smoothing the locations of past earthquakes listed in two Italian catalogs: a short instrumental catalog, and a longer instrumental and historic catalog. The bandwidth of the adaptive spatial kernel is estimated by optimizing the predictive power of the kernel estimate of the spatial earthquake density in retrospective forecasts. When available and reliable, we used small earthquakes of m ≥ 2.95 to reveal active fault structures and 29 probable future epicenters. By calibrating the model with these two catalogs of different durations to create two forecasts, we intend to quantify the loss (or gain of predictability incurred when only a short, but recent, data record is available. Both forecasts were scaled to five and ten years, and have been submitted to the Italian prospective forecasting experiment of the global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP. An earlier forecast from the model was submitted by Helmstetter et al. [2007] to the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Model (RELM experiment in California, and with more than half of the five-year experimental period over, the forecast has performed better than the others.

  11. Influenza forecasting with Google Flu Trends.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dugas, Andrea Freyer; Jalalpour, Mehdi; Gel, Yulia; Levin, Scott; Torcaso, Fred; Igusa, Takeru; Rothman, Richard E

    2013-01-01

    We developed a practical influenza forecast model based on real-time, geographically focused, and easy to access data, designed to provide individual medical centers with advanced warning of the expected number of influenza cases, thus allowing for sufficient time to implement interventions. Secondly, we evaluated the effects of incorporating a real-time influenza surveillance system, Google Flu Trends, and meteorological and temporal information on forecast accuracy. Forecast models designed to predict one week in advance were developed from weekly counts of confirmed influenza cases over seven seasons (2004-2011) divided into seven training and out-of-sample verification sets. Forecasting procedures using classical Box-Jenkins, generalized linear models (GLM), and generalized linear autoregressive moving average (GARMA) methods were employed to develop the final model and assess the relative contribution of external variables such as, Google Flu Trends, meteorological data, and temporal information. A GARMA(3,0) forecast model with Negative Binomial distribution integrating Google Flu Trends information provided the most accurate influenza case predictions. The model, on the average, predicts weekly influenza cases during 7 out-of-sample outbreaks within 7 cases for 83% of estimates. Google Flu Trend data was the only source of external information to provide statistically significant forecast improvements over the base model in four of the seven out-of-sample verification sets. Overall, the p-value of adding this external information to the model is 0.0005. The other exogenous variables did not yield a statistically significant improvement in any of the verification sets. Integer-valued autoregression of influenza cases provides a strong base forecast model, which is enhanced by the addition of Google Flu Trends confirming the predictive capabilities of search query based syndromic surveillance. This accessible and flexible forecast model can be used by

  12. Financial forecasts accuracy in Brazil's social security system.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Patrick Alves da Silva

    Full Text Available Long-term social security statistical forecasts produced and disseminated by the Brazilian government aim to provide accurate results that would serve as background information for optimal policy decisions. These forecasts are being used as support for the government's proposed pension reform that plans to radically change the Brazilian Constitution insofar as Social Security is concerned. However, the reliability of official results is uncertain since no systematic evaluation of these forecasts has ever been published by the Brazilian government or anyone else. This paper aims to present a study of the accuracy and methodology of the instruments used by the Brazilian government to carry out long-term actuarial forecasts. We base our research on an empirical and probabilistic analysis of the official models. Our empirical analysis shows that the long-term Social Security forecasts are systematically biased in the short term and have significant errors that render them meaningless in the long run. Moreover, the low level of transparency in the methods impaired the replication of results published by the Brazilian Government and the use of outdated data compromises forecast results. In the theoretical analysis, based on a mathematical modeling approach, we discuss the complexity and limitations of the macroeconomic forecast through the computation of confidence intervals. We demonstrate the problems related to error measurement inherent to any forecasting process. We then extend this exercise to the computation of confidence intervals for Social Security forecasts. This mathematical exercise raises questions about the degree of reliability of the Social Security forecasts.

  13. Financial forecasts accuracy in Brazil's social security system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silva, Carlos Patrick Alves da; Puty, Claudio Alberto Castelo Branco; Silva, Marcelino Silva da; Carvalho, Solon Venâncio de; Francês, Carlos Renato Lisboa

    2017-01-01

    Long-term social security statistical forecasts produced and disseminated by the Brazilian government aim to provide accurate results that would serve as background information for optimal policy decisions. These forecasts are being used as support for the government's proposed pension reform that plans to radically change the Brazilian Constitution insofar as Social Security is concerned. However, the reliability of official results is uncertain since no systematic evaluation of these forecasts has ever been published by the Brazilian government or anyone else. This paper aims to present a study of the accuracy and methodology of the instruments used by the Brazilian government to carry out long-term actuarial forecasts. We base our research on an empirical and probabilistic analysis of the official models. Our empirical analysis shows that the long-term Social Security forecasts are systematically biased in the short term and have significant errors that render them meaningless in the long run. Moreover, the low level of transparency in the methods impaired the replication of results published by the Brazilian Government and the use of outdated data compromises forecast results. In the theoretical analysis, based on a mathematical modeling approach, we discuss the complexity and limitations of the macroeconomic forecast through the computation of confidence intervals. We demonstrate the problems related to error measurement inherent to any forecasting process. We then extend this exercise to the computation of confidence intervals for Social Security forecasts. This mathematical exercise raises questions about the degree of reliability of the Social Security forecasts.

  14. A simple approach to measure transmissibility and forecast incidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nouvellet, Pierre; Cori, Anne; Garske, Tini; Blake, Isobel M; Dorigatti, Ilaria; Hinsley, Wes; Jombart, Thibaut; Mills, Harriet L; Nedjati-Gilani, Gemma; Van Kerkhove, Maria D; Fraser, Christophe; Donnelly, Christl A; Ferguson, Neil M; Riley, Steven

    2018-03-01

    Outbreaks of novel pathogens such as SARS, pandemic influenza and Ebola require substantial investments in reactive interventions, with consequent implementation plans sometimes revised on a weekly basis. Therefore, short-term forecasts of incidence are often of high priority. In light of the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, a forecasting exercise was convened by a network of infectious disease modellers. The challenge was to forecast unseen "future" simulated data for four different scenarios at five different time points. In a similar method to that used during the recent Ebola epidemic, we estimated current levels of transmissibility, over variable time-windows chosen in an ad hoc way. Current estimated transmissibility was then used to forecast near-future incidence. We performed well within the challenge and often produced accurate forecasts. A retrospective analysis showed that our subjective method for deciding on the window of time with which to estimate transmissibility often resulted in the optimal choice. However, when near-future trends deviated substantially from exponential patterns, the accuracy of our forecasts was reduced. This exercise highlights the urgent need for infectious disease modellers to develop more robust descriptions of processes - other than the widespread depletion of susceptible individuals - that produce non-exponential patterns of incidence. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. ENSEMBLE methods to reconcile disparate national long range dispersion forecasts

    OpenAIRE

    Mikkelsen, Torben; Galmarini, S.; Bianconi, R.; French, S.

    2003-01-01

    ENSEMBLE is a web-based decision support system for real-time exchange and evaluation of national long-range dispersion forecasts of nuclear releases with cross-boundary consequences. The system is developed with the purpose to reconcile among disparatenational forecasts for long-range dispersion. ENSEMBLE addresses the problem of achieving a common coherent strategy across European national emergency management when national long-range dispersion forecasts differ from one another during an a...

  16. Canadian nuclear power plant construction cost forecast and analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Keng, C.W.K.

    1985-01-01

    Because of the huge volume of capital required to construct a modern electric power generating station, investment decisions have to be made with as complete an understanding of the consequence of the decision as possible. This understanding must be provided by the evaluation of the situation to take place in the future. This paper attempts to use an econometric method to forecast the construction costs escalation of a standard Canadian nuclear generating station (NGS). A review of the history of Canadian nuclear electric power is provided. The major components of the construction costs of a Canadian NGS are studied and summarized. A data base is built and indexes are prepared. Based on these indexes an econometric forecasting model is constructed using an apparently new econometric methodology of forecasting modelling. Forecasts for a period of forty years are generated and applications of alternative scenario forecasts and range forecasts to uncertainty assessment are demonstrated. The indexes, the model, and the forecasts and their applications, to the best of the author's knowledge, are the very first ever done for Canadian NGS constructions

  17. Scenario Analysis: Evaluating Biodiversity Response to Forecasted Land-Use Change in the San Pedro River Basin (U.S.-Mexico)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Envisioning and evaluating future scenarios has emerged as a critical component of both science and social decision-making. The ability to assess, report, map, and forecast the life support functions of ecosystems is absolutely critical to our capacity to make informed decisions...

  18. Trade Balances of the Asian Countries under Crisis: Forecast and Evaluation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ingyo Cheong

    1998-06-01

    Full Text Available To overcome the financial crisis, we need to do some reform, such as to change the governmental and non-governmental structure, make sure the policy to be transparent, and remove restrictions, etc. All these measures can restore the confidence of foreign investors towards Korea. But to make balance of the trade surplus and keep foreign exchange reserve at a reasonable level, ensure foreign exchange and the security of financial department is one of the most urgent topics. Since the deep relationship of economy among countries in North-East Asia, financial crisis is not only the problem in Korea. It is already expended to the whole North-East Asia. This thesis shows the idea that we can forecast surplus in the trade balance scale, enlarge the trade balance of South Korea and activate export. It also shows that instead of the increase of export, the surplus is caused by the decrease of import. At this point of view, the number of surplus is not true. If the investment keeps decreasing like this, the foundation of Korean Economy will collapse.

  19. Production forecasting and economic evaluation of horizontal wells completed in natural fractured reservoirs

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Evans, R. D.

    1996-01-01

    A technique for optimizing recovery of hydrocarbons from naturally fractured reservoirs using horizontal well technology was proposed. The technique combines inflow performance analysis, production forecasting and economic considerations, and is based on material balance analysis and linear approximations of reservoir fluid properties as functions of reservoir pressure. An economic evaluation model accounting for the time value of cash flow, interest and inflation rates, is part of the package. Examples of using the technique have been demonstrated. The method is also applied to a gas well producing from a horizontal wellbore intersecting discrete natural fractures. 11 refs., 2 tabs,. 10 figs

  20. Forecasting Cryptocurrencies Financial Time Series

    OpenAIRE

    Catania, Leopoldo; Grassi, Stefano; Ravazzolo, Francesco

    2018-01-01

    This paper studies the predictability of cryptocurrencies time series. We compare several alternative univariate and multivariate models in point and density forecasting of four of the most capitalized series: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple and Ethereum. We apply a set of crypto–predictors and rely on Dynamic Model Averaging to combine a large set of univariate Dynamic Linear Models and several multivariate Vector Autoregressive models with different forms of time variation. We find statistical si...

  1. The Probability of Default Under IFRS 9: Multi-period Estimation and Macroeconomic Forecast

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomáš Vaněk

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we propose a straightforward, flexible and intuitive computational framework for the multi-period probability of default estimation incorporating macroeconomic forecasts. The concept is based on Markov models, the estimated economic adjustment coefficient and the official economic forecasts of the Czech National Bank. The economic forecasts are taken into account in a separate step to better distinguish between idiosyncratic and systemic risk. This approach is also attractive from the interpretational point of view. The proposed framework can be used especially when calculating lifetime expected credit losses under IFRS 9.

  2. Road icing forecasting and detecting system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Hongke; Zheng, Jinnan; Li, Peiqi; Wang, Qiucai

    2017-05-01

    Regard for the facts that the low accuracy and low real-time of the artificial observation to determine the road icing condition, and it is difficult to forecast icing situation, according to the main factors influencing the road-icing, and the electrical characteristics reflected by the pavement ice layer, this paper presents an innovative system, that is, ice-forecasting of the highway's dangerous section. The system bases on road surface water salinity measurements and pavement temperature measurement to calculate the freezing point of water and temperature change trend, and then predicts the occurrence time of road icing; using capacitance measurements to verdict the road surface is frozen or not; This paper expounds the method of using single chip microcomputer as the core of the control system and described the business process of the system.

  3. Approximation to a model for forecasting radiation fog in Rionegro-Antioquia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aguilar Gonzalez, Ana Isabel; Leon Aristizabal, Gloria

    2004-01-01

    Based on the discriminant analysis method, the modeling of the fog was carried out in order to forecast its occurrence with 3, 5 and 6 hours of anticipation, considering as the predictor variables: air temperature, dew point depression, strength of the surface wind, heat flow in the ground, latent heat flow, sensible heat flow, and the friction velocity. The values of these variables are taken from the hourly surface weather data at the airport in question, whereas the micro meteorological type variables are obtained through the program CAPLIM, thus enabling this model to be applied with operative aims. The forecast skill of the model depends on the prior time span of prediction. Three hours ahead of the occurrence of the phenomenon, the forecasts are right in 76% of cases, whereas if forecast five to six hours in advance the skill scores 53%

  4. Adaptive Blending of Model and Observations for Automated Short-Range Forecasting: Examples from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailey, Monika E.; Isaac, George A.; Gultepe, Ismail; Heckman, Ivan; Reid, Janti

    2014-01-01

    An automated short-range forecasting system, adaptive blending of observations and model (ABOM), was tested in real time during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in British Columbia. Data at 1-min time resolution were available from a newly established, dense network of surface observation stations. Climatological data were not available at these new stations. This, combined with output from new high-resolution numerical models, provided a unique and exciting setting to test nowcasting systems in mountainous terrain during winter weather conditions. The ABOM method blends extrapolations in time of recent local observations with numerical weather predictions (NWP) model predictions to generate short-range point forecasts of surface variables out to 6 h. The relative weights of the model forecast and the observation extrapolation are based on performance over recent history. The average performance of ABOM nowcasts during February and March 2010 was evaluated using standard scores and thresholds important for Olympic events. Significant improvements over the model forecasts alone were obtained for continuous variables such as temperature, relative humidity and wind speed. The small improvements to forecasts of variables such as visibility and ceiling, subject to discontinuous changes, are attributed to the persistence component of ABOM.

  5. Evaluation of multiple emission point facilities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miltenberger, R.P.; Hull, A.P.; Strachan, S.; Tichler, J.

    1988-01-01

    In 1970, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) assumed responsibility for the environmental aspect of the state's regulatory program for by-product, source, and special nuclear material. The major objective of this study was to provide consultation to NYSDEC and the US NRC to assist NYSDEC in determining if broad-based licensed facilities with multiple emission points were in compliance with NYCRR Part 380. Under this contract, BNL would evaluate a multiple emission point facility, identified by NYSDEC, as a case study. The review would be a nonbinding evaluation of the facility to determine likely dispersion characteristics, compliance with specified release limits, and implementation of the ALARA philosophy regarding effluent release practices. From the data collected, guidance as to areas of future investigation and the impact of new federal regulations were to be developed. Reported here is the case study for the University of Rochester, Strong Memorial Medical Center and Riverside Campus

  6. Statistical Studies of Mesoscale Forecast Models MM5 and WRF

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Henmi, Teizi

    2004-01-01

    ... models were carried out and the results were compared with surface observation data. Both models tended to overforecast temperature and dew-point temperature, although the correlation coefficients between forecast and observations were fairly high...

  7. Evaluation of snowmelt simulation in the Weather Research and Forecasting model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jin, Jiming; Wen, Lijuan

    2012-05-01

    The objective of this study is to better understand and improve snowmelt simulations in the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model by coupling it with the Community Land Model (CLM) Version 3.5. Both WRF and CLM are developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The automated Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) station data over the Columbia River Basin in the northwestern United States are used to evaluate snowmelt simulations generated with the coupled WRF-CLM model. These SNOTEL data include snow water equivalent (SWE), precipitation, and temperature. The simulations cover the period of March through June 2002 and focus mostly on the snowmelt season. Initial results show that when compared to observations, WRF-CLM significantly improves the simulations of SWE, which is underestimated when the release version of WRF is coupled with the Noah and Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) land surface schemes, in which snow physics is oversimplified. Further analysis shows that more realistic snow surface energy allocation in CLM is an important process that results in improved snowmelt simulations when compared to that in Noah and RUC. Additional simulations with WRF-CLM at different horizontal spatial resolutions indicate that accurate description of topography is also vital to SWE simulations. WRF-CLM at 10 km resolution produces the most realistic SWE simulations when compared to those produced with coarser spatial resolutions in which SWE is remarkably underestimated. The coupled WRF-CLM provides an important tool for research and forecasts in weather, climate, and water resources at regional scales.

  8. A review of operational, regional-scale, chemical weather forecasting models in Europe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Kukkonen

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Numerical models that combine weather forecasting and atmospheric chemistry are here referred to as chemical weather forecasting models. Eighteen operational chemical weather forecasting models on regional and continental scales in Europe are described and compared in this article. Topics discussed in this article include how weather forecasting and atmospheric chemistry models are integrated into chemical weather forecasting systems, how physical processes are incorporated into the models through parameterization schemes, how the model architecture affects the predicted variables, and how air chemistry and aerosol processes are formulated. In addition, we discuss sensitivity analysis and evaluation of the models, user operational requirements, such as model availability and documentation, and output availability and dissemination. In this manner, this article allows for the evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various modelling systems and modelling approaches. Finally, this article highlights the most prominent gaps of knowledge for chemical weather forecasting models and suggests potential priorities for future research directions, for the following selected focus areas: emission inventories, the integration of numerical weather prediction and atmospheric chemical transport models, boundary conditions and nesting of models, data assimilation of the various chemical species, improved understanding and parameterization of physical processes, better evaluation of models against data and the construction of model ensembles.

  9. An Electrical Energy Consumption Monitoring and Forecasting System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. L. Rojas-Renteria

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Electricity consumption is currently an issue of great interest for power companies that need an as much as accurate profile for controlling the installed systems but also for designing future expansions and alterations. Detailed monitoring has proved to be valuable for both power companies and consumers. Further, as smart grid technology is bound to result to increasingly flexible rates, an accurate forecast is bound to prove valuable in the future. In this paper, a monitoring and forecasting system is investigated. The monitoring system was installed in an actual building and the recordings were used to design and evaluate the forecasting system, based on an artificial neural network. Results show that the system can provide detailed monitoring and also an accurate forecast for a building’s consumption.

  10. Energy demand forecasting method based on international statistical data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Glanc, Z.; Kerner, A.

    1997-01-01

    Poland is in a transition phase from a centrally planned to a market economy; data collected under former economic conditions do not reflect a market economy. Final energy demand forecasts are based on the assumption that the economic transformation in Poland will gradually lead the Polish economy, technologies and modes of energy use, to the same conditions as mature market economy countries. The starting point has a significant influence on the future energy demand and supply structure: final energy consumption per capita in 1992 was almost half the average of OECD countries; energy intensity, based on Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) and referred to GDP, is more than 3 times higher in Poland. A method of final energy demand forecasting based on regression analysis is described in this paper. The input data are: output of macroeconomic and population growth forecast; time series 1970-1992 of OECD countries concerning both macroeconomic characteristics and energy consumption; and energy balance of Poland for the base year of the forecast horizon. (author). 1 ref., 19 figs, 4 tabs

  11. ECONOMETRIC FORECAST OF AGRICULTURAL SECTOR INVESTING IN LVOV REGION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rostyslav Lytvyn

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Purpose of economic processes forecasting in agriculture is more relevant and urgent in recent years with application of applied econometric methods. In represented research paper, these methods are used to forecast investment and the main agricultural industry indicators of Lvov region of Ukraine. The linear trend model, the parabolic trend model and the exponential trend model were elaborated from the period from 2000 to 2009 in this scientific study using applied statistical tool STATGRAFICS and EXCEL spreadsheets. And with assistance of these models forecast for investment on the basis of data of essential indicators of agrarian sector of the region for 2010 and 2011 was made. All models with probability р=0,95 are adequate experimental data for 2000-2009 years, that allow to make the forecast of investments and main agricultural indicators of the researched region by these models for 2010 and 2011 years. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that, because of small amount of input data analysis of regression equations coefficients have more qualitative than quantitative influence upon resulting variable y6.

  12. Energy demand forecasting method based on international statistical data

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Glanc, Z; Kerner, A [Energy Information Centre, Warsaw (Poland)

    1997-09-01

    Poland is in a transition phase from a centrally planned to a market economy; data collected under former economic conditions do not reflect a market economy. Final energy demand forecasts are based on the assumption that the economic transformation in Poland will gradually lead the Polish economy, technologies and modes of energy use, to the same conditions as mature market economy countries. The starting point has a significant influence on the future energy demand and supply structure: final energy consumption per capita in 1992 was almost half the average of OECD countries; energy intensity, based on Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) and referred to GDP, is more than 3 times higher in Poland. A method of final energy demand forecasting based on regression analysis is described in this paper. The input data are: output of macroeconomic and population growth forecast; time series 1970-1992 of OECD countries concerning both macroeconomic characteristics and energy consumption; and energy balance of Poland for the base year of the forecast horizon. (author). 1 ref., 19 figs, 4 tabs.

  13. A novel hybrid ensemble learning paradigm for tourism forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shabri, Ani

    2015-02-01

    In this paper, a hybrid forecasting model based on Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) is proposed to forecast tourism demand. This methodology first decomposes the original visitor arrival series into several Intrinsic Model Function (IMFs) components and one residual component by EMD technique. Then, IMFs components and the residual components is forecasted respectively using GMDH model whose input variables are selected by using Partial Autocorrelation Function (PACF). The final forecasted result for tourism series is produced by aggregating all the forecasted results. For evaluating the performance of the proposed EMD-GMDH methodologies, the monthly data of tourist arrivals from Singapore to Malaysia are used as an illustrative example. Empirical results show that the proposed EMD-GMDH model outperforms the EMD-ARIMA as well as the GMDH and ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) models without time series decomposition.

  14. DeMand: A tool for evaluating and comparing device-level demand and supply forecast models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Neupane, Bijay; Siksnys, Laurynas; Pedersen, Torben Bach

    2016-01-01

    Fine-grained device-level predictions of both shiftable and non-shiftable energy demand and supply is vital in order to take advantage of Demand Response (DR) for efficient utilization of Renewable Energy Sources. The selection of an effective device-level load forecast model is a challenging task......, mainly due to the diversity of the models and the lack of proper tools and datasets that can be used to validate them. In this paper, we introduce the DeMand system for fine-tuning, analyzing, and validating the device-level forecast models. The system offers several built-in device-level measurement...... datasets, forecast models, features, and errors measures, thus semi-automating most of the steps of the forecast model selection and validation process. This paper presents the architecture and data model of the DeMand system; and provides a use-case example on how one particular forecast model...

  15. Inflation Forecast Contracts

    OpenAIRE

    Gersbach, Hans; Hahn, Volker

    2012-01-01

    We introduce a new type of incentive contract for central bankers: inflation forecast contracts, which make central bankers’ remunerations contingent on the precision of their inflation forecasts. We show that such contracts enable central bankers to influence inflation expectations more effectively, thus facilitating more successful stabilization of current inflation. Inflation forecast contracts improve the accuracy of inflation forecasts, but have adverse consequences for output. On balanc...

  16. Design and evaluation of pointing devices; Gestaltung und Evaluation von koordinatengebenden Interaktionsgeraeten

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Krauss, L.; Zuehlke, D. [Kaiserslautern Univ. (Germany)

    2002-07-01

    Pointing devices e.g. the computer mouse are gaining considerable importance in modern human-machine-systems as a major part of the interaction interface between human beings and machines. During the dialogues with window-based operating systems the human being - the user - moves the cursor to a certain position on the screen by means of pointing devices. Microsoft products like WINDOWS have asserted themselves in the meantime in office applications and are currently conquering the market of industrial control systems as well. In office applications the mouse has become established as the most important pointing device for interaction. However, an 'office mouse' is not really suitable in a manufacturing environment. Only a few investigations exist evaluating alternatives to the mouse, which are suitable for industrial applications. At the Center of Human-Machine-Interaction (ZMMI) of the Institute of Production Automation (pak) at the University of Kaiserslautern a comparative investigation was carried out for alternative pointing devices like mouse, mousepad, mousebutton, mousestick, trackball, joystick, touchscreen, digitizing tablet and keyboard to determine their industrial suitability. This paper presents the methods of investigation and the most important results. The known Fitts' law model is mainly used in the field of HCl for office applications in order to evaluate interaction devices. This paper presents the new method DEVICE and is applied in the field of HMI for the evaluation of pointing devices. Tests with DEVICE and Fitts' method were conducted with machine operators under industrial environments to determine the suitability of thirty different pointing devices. The comparison between DEVICE and Fitts' law model shows that the results of certain partial tests correlate with each other. DEVICE can be used as substitute for Fitts' law model and offers additional parameters such as e.g. error rates and pointing deviation

  17. Forecasting risk along a river basin using a probabilistic and deterministic model for environmental risk assessment of effluents through ecotoxicological evaluation and GIS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gutiérrez, Simón; Fernandez, Carlos; Barata, Carlos; Tarazona, José Vicente

    2009-12-20

    This work presents a computer model for Risk Assessment of Basins by Ecotoxicological Evaluation (RABETOX). The model is based on whole effluent toxicity testing and water flows along a specific river basin. It is capable of estimating the risk along a river segment using deterministic and probabilistic approaches. The Henares River Basin was selected as a case study to demonstrate the importance of seasonal hydrological variations in Mediterranean regions. As model inputs, two different ecotoxicity tests (the miniaturized Daphnia magna acute test and the D.magna feeding test) were performed on grab samples from 5 waste water treatment plant effluents. Also used as model inputs were flow data from the past 25 years, water velocity measurements and precise distance measurements using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The model was implemented into a spreadsheet and the results were interpreted and represented using GIS in order to facilitate risk communication. To better understand the bioassays results, the effluents were screened through SPME-GC/MS analysis. The deterministic model, performed each month during one calendar year, showed a significant seasonal variation of risk while revealing that September represents the worst-case scenario with values up to 950 Risk Units. This classifies the entire area of study for the month of September as "sublethal significant risk for standard species". The probabilistic approach using Monte Carlo analysis was performed on 7 different forecast points distributed along the Henares River. A 0% probability of finding "low risk" was found at all forecast points with a more than 50% probability of finding "potential risk for sensitive species". The values obtained through both the deterministic and probabilistic approximations reveal the presence of certain substances, which might be causing sublethal effects in the aquatic species present in the Henares River.

  18. Oil-points - Designers means to evaluate sustainability of concepts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bey, Niki; Lenau, Torben Anker

    1998-01-01

    Designers have an essential influence on product design and are therefore one target group for environmental evaluation methods. This implies, that such evaluation methods have to meet designers requirements. Evaluation of sustainability of products is often done using formal Life Cycle Assessment....... This is investigated by means of three case studies where environmental impact is estimated using the EDIP method, the Eco-indicator 95 method, and the Oil Point method proposed by the authors. It is found that the results obtained using Oil Points are in acceptable conformity with the results obtained with more...

  19. Challenges for operational forecasting and early warning of rainfall induced landslides

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guzzetti, Fausto

    2017-04-01

    In many areas of the world, landslides occur every year, claiming lives and producing severe economic and environmental damage. Many of the landslides with human or economic consequences are the result of intense or prolonged rainfall. For this reason, in many areas the timely forecast of rainfall-induced landslides is of both scientific interest and social relevance. In the recent years, there has been a mounting interest and an increasing demand for operational landslide forecasting, and for associated landslide early warning systems. Despite the relevance of the problem, and the increasing interest and demand, only a few systems have been designed, and are currently operated. Inspection of the - limited - literature on operational landslide forecasting, and on the associated early warning systems, reveals that common criteria and standards for the design, the implementation, the operation, and the evaluation of the performances of the systems, are lacking. This limits the possibility to compare and to evaluate the systems critically, to identify their inherent strengths and weaknesses, and to improve the performance of the systems. Lack of common criteria and of established standards can also limit the credibility of the systems, and consequently their usefulness and potential practical impact. Landslides are very diversified phenomena, and the information and the modelling tools used to attempt landslide forecasting vary largely, depending on the type and size of the landslides, the extent of the geographical area considered, the timeframe of the forecasts, and the scope of the predictions. Consequently, systems for landslide forecasting and early warning can be designed and implemented at several different geographical scales, from the local (site or slope specific) to the regional, or even national scale. The talk focuses on regional to national scale landslide forecasting systems, and specifically on operational systems based on empirical rainfall threshold

  20. Statistical and RBF NN models : providing forecasts and risk assessment

    OpenAIRE

    Marček, Milan

    2009-01-01

    Forecast accuracy of economic and financial processes is a popular measure for quantifying the risk in decision making. In this paper, we develop forecasting models based on statistical (stochastic) methods, sometimes called hard computing, and on a soft method using granular computing. We consider the accuracy of forecasting models as a measure for risk evaluation. It is found that the risk estimation process based on soft methods is simplified and less critical to the question w...

  1. Understanding Farmers’ Forecast Use from Their Beliefs, Values, Social Norms, and Perceived Obstacles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Qi; Pytlik Zillig, Lisa M.; Lynne, Gary D.; Tomkins, Alan J.; Waltman, William J.; Hayes, Michael J.; Hubbard, Kenneth G.; Artikov, Ikrom; Hoffman, Stacey J.; Wilhite, Donald A.

    2006-09-01

    Although the accuracy of weather and climate forecasts is continuously improving and new information retrieved from climate data is adding to the understanding of climate variation, use of the forecasts and climate information by farmers in farming decisions has changed little. This lack of change may result from knowledge barriers and psychological, social, and economic factors that undermine farmer motivation to use forecasts and climate information. According to the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the motivation to use forecasts may arise from personal attitudes, social norms, and perceived control or ability to use forecasts in specific decisions. These attributes are examined using data from a survey designed around the TPB and conducted among farming communities in the region of eastern Nebraska and the western U.S. Corn Belt. There were three major findings: 1) the utility and value of the forecasts for farming decisions as perceived by farmers are, on average, around 3.0 on a 0 7 scale, indicating much room to improve attitudes toward the forecast value. 2) The use of forecasts by farmers to influence decisions is likely affected by several social groups that can provide “expert viewpoints” on forecast use. 3) A major obstacle, next to forecast accuracy, is the perceived identity and reliability of the forecast makers. Given the rapidly increasing number of forecasts in this growing service business, the ambiguous identity of forecast providers may have left farmers confused and may have prevented them from developing both trust in forecasts and skills to use them. These findings shed light on productive avenues for increasing the influence of forecasts, which may lead to greater farming productivity. In addition, this study establishes a set of reference points that can be used for comparisons with future studies to quantify changes in forecast use and influence.

  2. Evaluation and Application of the Weather Research and Forecast Model

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Passner, Jeffrey E

    2007-01-01

    ... by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to determine how accurate and robust the model is under a variety of meteorological conditions, with an emphasis on fine resolution, short-range forecasts in complex terrain...

  3. Forecasting Investment Risks in Conditions of Uncertainty

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrenko Elena A.

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The article is aimed at studying the topical problem of evaluation and forecasting risks of investment activity of enterprises in conditions of uncertainty. Generalizing the researches on qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating investment risks has helped to reveal certain shortcomings of the proposed approaches, to note in most of the publications there are no results as to any practical application, and to allocate promising directions. On the basis of the theory of fuzzy sets, a model of forecasting the expected risk has been proposed, making use of the Gauss membership function, which has certain advantages over the multi-angular membership functions. Dependences of investment risk from the parameters characterizing the investment project have been obtained. Using the formulas obtained, the total risk of investing in innovation project depending on the boundary conditions has been defined. As the researched target, index of profitability has been selected. The model provides the potential investors and developers with forecasting possible scenarios of investment process to make informed managerial decisions about the appropriateness of introduction and implementation of a project.

  4. A new lattice model of traffic flow with the consideration of the driver's forecast effects

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Peng, G.H., E-mail: pengguanghan@yahoo.com.cn [College of Physics and Electronic Science, Hunan University of Arts and Science, Changde 415000 (China); Cai, X.H.; Liu, C.Q.; Cao, B.F. [College of Physics and Electronic Science, Hunan University of Arts and Science, Changde 415000 (China)

    2011-05-30

    In this Letter, a new lattice model is presented with the consideration of the driver's forecast effects (DFE). The linear stability condition of the extended model is obtained by using the linear stability theory. The analytical results show that the new model can improve the stability of traffic flow by considering DFE. The modified KdV equation near the critical point is derived to describe the traffic jam by nonlinear analysis. Numerical simulation also shows that the new model can improve the stability of traffic flow by adjusting the driver's forecast intensity parameter, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis. -- Highlights: → A new driver's forecast lattice model of traffic flow has been presented. → The driver's forecast effects on the stability of traffic flow have been explored. → The modified KdV equation near the critical point is derived to describe the traffic jam by nonlinear analysis. → The analytical and numerical results show that the driver's forecast effect can improve the stability of traffic flow.

  5. Magnetogram Forecast: An All-Clear Space Weather Forecasting System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barghouty, Nasser; Falconer, David

    2015-01-01

    Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the drivers of severe space weather. Forecasting the probability of their occurrence is critical in improving space weather forecasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) currently uses the McIntosh active region category system, in which each active region on the disk is assigned to one of 60 categories, and uses the historical flare rates of that category to make an initial forecast that can then be adjusted by the NOAA forecaster. Flares and CMEs are caused by the sudden release of energy from the coronal magnetic field by magnetic reconnection. It is believed that the rate of flare and CME occurrence in an active region is correlated with the free energy of an active region. While the free energy cannot be measured directly with present observations, proxies of the free energy can instead be used to characterize the relative free energy of an active region. The Magnetogram Forecast (MAG4) (output is available at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center) was conceived and designed to be a databased, all-clear forecasting system to support the operational goals of NASA's Space Radiation Analysis Group. The MAG4 system automatically downloads nearreal- time line-of-sight Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) magnetograms on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite, identifies active regions on the solar disk, measures a free-energy proxy, and then applies forecasting curves to convert the free-energy proxy into predicted event rates for X-class flares, M- and X-class flares, CMEs, fast CMEs, and solar energetic particle events (SPEs). The forecast curves themselves are derived from a sample of 40,000 magnetograms from 1,300 active region samples, observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Michelson Doppler Imager. Figure 1 is an example of MAG4 visual output

  6. Integration of Behind-the-Meter PV Fleet Forecasts into Utility Grid System Operations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hoff, Thomas Hoff [Clean Power Research, L.L.C., Napa, CA (United States); Kankiewicz, Adam [Clean Power Research, L.L.C., Napa, CA (United States)

    2016-02-26

    Four major research objectives were completed over the course of this study. Three of the objectives were to evaluate three, new, state-of-the-art solar irradiance forecasting models. The fourth objective was to improve the California Independent System Operator’s (ISO) load forecasts by integrating behind-the-meter (BTM) PV forecasts. The three, new, state-of-the-art solar irradiance forecasting models included: the infrared (IR) satellite-based cloud motion vector (CMV) model; the WRF-SolarCA model and variants; and the Optimized Deep Machine Learning (ODML)-training model. The first two forecasting models targeted known weaknesses in current operational solar forecasts. They were benchmarked against existing operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecasts, visible satellite CMV forecasts, and measured PV plant power production. IR CMV, WRF-SolarCA, and ODML-training forecasting models all improved the forecast to a significant degree. Improvements varied depending on time of day, cloudiness index, and geographic location. The fourth objective was to demonstrate that the California ISO’s load forecasts could be improved by integrating BTM PV forecasts. This objective represented the project’s most exciting and applicable gains. Operational BTM forecasts consisting of 200,000+ individual rooftop PV forecasts were delivered into the California ISO’s real-time automated load forecasting (ALFS) environment. They were then evaluated side-by-side with operational load forecasts with no BTM-treatment. Overall, ALFS-BTM day-ahead (DA) forecasts performed better than baseline ALFS forecasts when compared to actual load data. Specifically, ALFS-BTM DA forecasts were observed to have the largest reduction of error during the afternoon on cloudy days. Shorter term 30 minute-ahead ALFS-BTM forecasts were shown to have less error under all sky conditions, especially during the morning time periods when traditional load forecasts often experience their largest

  7. Medium Range Forecasts Representation (and Long Range Forecasts?)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vincendon, J.-C.

    2009-09-01

    The progress of the numerical forecasts urges us to interest us in more and more distant ranges. We thus supply more and more forecasts with term of some days. Nevertheless, precautions of use are necessary to give the most reliable and the most relevant possible information. Available in a TV bulletin or on quite other support (Internet, mobile phone), the interpretation and the representation of a medium range forecast (5 - 15 days) must be different from those of a short range forecast. Indeed, the "foresee-ability” of a meteorological phenomenon decreases gradually in the course of the ranges, it decreases all the more quickly that the phenomenon is of small scale. So, at the end of some days, the probability character of a forecast becomes very widely dominating. That is why in Meteo-France the forecasts of D+4 to D+7 are accompanied with a confidence index since around ten years. It is a figure between 1 and 5: the more we approach 5, the more the confidence in the supplied forecast is good. In the practice, an indication is supplied for period D+4 / D+5, the other one for period D+6 / D+7, every day being able to benefit from a different forecast, that is be represented in a independent way. We thus supply a global tendency over 24 hours with less and less precise symbols as the range goes away. Concrete examples will be presented. From now on two years, we also publish forecasts to D+8 / J+9, accompanied with a sign of confidence (" good reliability " or " to confirm "). These two days are grouped together on a single map because for us, the described tendency to this term is relevant on a duration about 48 hours with a spatial scale slightly superior to the synoptic scale. So, we avoid producing more than two zones of types of weather over France and we content with giving an evolution for the temperatures (still, in increase or in decline). Newspapers began to publish this information, it should soon be the case of televisions. It is particularly

  8. Evaluation of high-resolution forecasts with the non-hydrostaticnumerical weather prediction model Lokalmodell for urban air pollutionepisodes in Helsinki, Oslo and Valencia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. Fay

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The operational numerical weather prediction model Lokalmodell LM with 7,km horizontal resolution was evaluated for forecasting meteorological conditions during observed urban air pollution episodes. The resolution was increased to experimental 2.8 km and 1.1 km resolution by one-way interactive nesting without introducing urbanisation of physiographic parameters or parameterisations. The episodes examined are two severe winter inversion-induced episodes in Helsinki in December 1995 and Oslo in January 2003, three suspended dust episodes in spring and autumn in Helsinki and Oslo, and a late-summer photochemical episode in the Valencia area. The evaluation was basically performed against observations and radiosoundings and focused on the LM skill at forecasting the key meteorological parameters characteristic for the specific episodes. These included temperature inversions, atmospheric stability and low wind speeds for the Scandinavian episodes and the development of mesoscale recirculations in the Valencia area. LM forecasts often improved due to higher model resolution especially in mountainous areas like Oslo and Valencia where features depending on topography like temperature, wind fields and mesoscale valley circulations were better described. At coastal stations especially in Helsinki, forecast gains were due to the improved physiographic parameters (land fraction, soil type, or roughness length. The Helsinki and Oslo winter inversions with extreme nocturnal inversion strengths of 18°C were not sufficiently predicted with all LM resolutions. In Helsinki, overprediction of surface temperatures and low-level wind speeds basically led to underpredicted inversion strength. In the Oslo episode, the situation was more complex involving erroneous temperature advection and mountain-induced effects for the higher resolutions. Possible explanations include the influence of the LM treatment of snow cover, sea ice and stability-dependence of transfer

  9. Forecasting Volatility of USD/MUR Exchange Rate using a GARCH ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    that both distributions may forecast quite well with a slight advantage to the. GARCH(1 ... Financial time series tend to exhibit certain characteristic features such as volatility ... Heteroscedasticity-adjusted MAE to evaluate the forecasts. Chuanga et .... the Student's-t distribution or the GED with the following probability density.

  10. Assessing flood forecast uncertainty with fuzzy arithmetic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    de Bruyn Bertrand

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Providing forecasts for flow rates and water levels during floods have to be associated with uncertainty estimates. The forecast sources of uncertainty are plural. For hydrological forecasts (rainfall-runoff performed using a deterministic hydrological model with basic physics, two main sources can be identified. The first obvious source is the forcing data: rainfall forecast data are supplied in real time by meteorological forecasting services to the Flood Forecasting Service within a range between a lowest and a highest predicted discharge. These two values define an uncertainty interval for the rainfall variable provided on a given watershed. The second source of uncertainty is related to the complexity of the modeled system (the catchment impacted by the hydro-meteorological phenomenon, the number of variables that may describe the problem and their spatial and time variability. The model simplifies the system by reducing the number of variables to a few parameters. Thus it contains an intrinsic uncertainty. This model uncertainty is assessed by comparing simulated and observed rates for a large number of hydro-meteorological events. We propose a method based on fuzzy arithmetic to estimate the possible range of flow rates (and levels of water making a forecast based on possible rainfalls provided by forcing and uncertainty model. The model uncertainty is here expressed as a range of possible values. Both rainfall and model uncertainties are combined with fuzzy arithmetic. This method allows to evaluate the prediction uncertainty range. The Flood Forecasting Service of Oise and Aisne rivers, in particular, monitors the upstream watershed of the Oise at Hirson. This watershed’s area is 310 km2. Its response time is about 10 hours. Several hydrological models are calibrated for flood forecasting in this watershed and use the rainfall forecast. This method presents the advantage to be easily implemented. Moreover, it permits to be carried out

  11. Evaluation of Ensemble Water Supply and Demands Forecasts for Water Management in the Klamath River Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Broman, D.; Gangopadhyay, S.; McGuire, M.; Wood, A.; Leady, Z.; Tansey, M. K.; Nelson, K.; Dahm, K.

    2017-12-01

    The Upper Klamath River Basin in south central Oregon and north central California is home to the Klamath Irrigation Project, which is operated by the Bureau of Reclamation and provides water to around 200,000 acres of agricultural lands. The project is managed in consideration of not only water deliveries to irrigators, but also wildlife refuge water demands, biological opinion requirements for Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed fish, and Tribal Trust responsibilities. Climate change has the potential to impact water management in terms of volume and timing of water and the ability to meet multiple objectives. Current operations use a spreadsheet-based decision support tool, with water supply forecasts from the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and California-Nevada River Forecast Center (CNRFC). This tool is currently limited in its ability to incorporate in ensemble forecasts, which offer the potential for improved operations by quantifying forecast uncertainty. To address these limitations, this study has worked to develop a RiverWare based water resource systems model, flexible enough to use across multiple decision time-scales, from short-term operations out to long-range planning. Systems model development has been accompanied by operational system development to handle data management and multiple modeling components. Using a set of ensemble hindcasts, this study seeks to answer several questions: A) Do a new set of ensemble streamflow forecasts have additional skill beyond what?, and allow for improved decision making under changing conditions? B) Do net irrigation water requirement forecasts developed in this project to quantify agricultural demands and reservoir evaporation forecasts provide additional benefits to decision making beyond water supply forecasts? C) What benefit do ensemble forecasts have in the context of water management decisions?

  12. Are Forecast Updates Progressive?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    C-L. Chang (Chia-Lin); Ph.H.B.F. Franses (Philip Hans); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

    2010-01-01

    textabstractMacro-economic forecasts typically involve both a model component, which is replicable, as well as intuition, which is non-replicable. Intuition is expert knowledge possessed by a forecaster. If forecast updates are progressive, forecast updates should become more accurate, on average,

  13. Financial forecasts accuracy in Brazil’s social security system

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-01-01

    Long-term social security statistical forecasts produced and disseminated by the Brazilian government aim to provide accurate results that would serve as background information for optimal policy decisions. These forecasts are being used as support for the government’s proposed pension reform that plans to radically change the Brazilian Constitution insofar as Social Security is concerned. However, the reliability of official results is uncertain since no systematic evaluation of these forecasts has ever been published by the Brazilian government or anyone else. This paper aims to present a study of the accuracy and methodology of the instruments used by the Brazilian government to carry out long-term actuarial forecasts. We base our research on an empirical and probabilistic analysis of the official models. Our empirical analysis shows that the long-term Social Security forecasts are systematically biased in the short term and have significant errors that render them meaningless in the long run. Moreover, the low level of transparency in the methods impaired the replication of results published by the Brazilian Government and the use of outdated data compromises forecast results. In the theoretical analysis, based on a mathematical modeling approach, we discuss the complexity and limitations of the macroeconomic forecast through the computation of confidence intervals. We demonstrate the problems related to error measurement inherent to any forecasting process. We then extend this exercise to the computation of confidence intervals for Social Security forecasts. This mathematical exercise raises questions about the degree of reliability of the Social Security forecasts. PMID:28859172

  14. Theory Study and Application of the BP-ANN Method for Power Grid Short-Term Load Forecasting

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Xia Hua; Gang Zhang; Jiawei Yang; Zhengyuan Li

    2015-01-01

    Aiming at the low accuracy problem of power system short⁃term load forecasting by traditional methods, a back⁃propagation artifi⁃cial neural network (BP⁃ANN) based method for short⁃term load forecasting is presented in this paper. The forecast points are re⁃lated to prophase adjacent data as well as the periodical long⁃term historical load data. Then the short⁃term load forecasting model of Shanxi Power Grid (China) based on BP⁃ANN method and correlation analysis is established. The simulation model matches well with practical power system load, indicating the BP⁃ANN method is simple and with higher precision and practicality.

  15. Short-term Probabilistic Forecasting of Wind Speed Using Stochastic Differential Equations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Iversen, Jan Emil Banning; Morales González, Juan Miguel; Møller, Jan Kloppenborg

    2016-01-01

    and uncertain nature. In this paper, we propose a modeling framework for wind speed that is based on stochastic differential equations. We show that stochastic differential equations allow us to naturally capture the time dependence structure of wind speed prediction errors (from 1 up to 24 hours ahead) and......It is widely accepted today that probabilistic forecasts of wind power production constitute valuable information for both wind power producers and power system operators to economically exploit this form of renewable energy, while mitigating the potential adverse effects related to its variable......, most importantly, to derive point and quantile forecasts, predictive distributions, and time-path trajectories (also referred to as scenarios or ensemble forecasts), all by one single stochastic differential equation model characterized by a few parameters....

  16. Near-term probabilistic forecast of significant wildfire events for the Western United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haiganoush K. Preisler; Karin L. Riley; Crystal S. Stonesifer; Dave E. Calkin; Matt Jolly

    2016-01-01

    Fire danger and potential for large fires in the United States (US) is currently indicated via several forecasted qualitative indices. However, landscape-level quantitative forecasts of the probability of a large fire are currently lacking. In this study, we present a framework for forecasting large fire occurrence - an extreme value event - and evaluating...

  17. A prospective earthquake forecast experiment in the western Pacific

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eberhard, David A. J.; Zechar, J. Douglas; Wiemer, Stefan

    2012-09-01

    Since the beginning of 2009, the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) has been conducting an earthquake forecast experiment in the western Pacific. This experiment is an extension of the Kagan-Jackson experiments begun 15 years earlier and is a prototype for future global earthquake predictability experiments. At the beginning of each year, seismicity models make a spatially gridded forecast of the number of Mw≥ 5.8 earthquakes expected in the next year. For the three participating statistical models, we analyse the first two years of this experiment. We use likelihood-based metrics to evaluate the consistency of the forecasts with the observed target earthquakes and we apply measures based on Student's t-test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare the forecasts. Overall, a simple smoothed seismicity model (TripleS) performs the best, but there are some exceptions that indicate continued experiments are vital to fully understand the stability of these models, the robustness of model selection and, more generally, earthquake predictability in this region. We also estimate uncertainties in our results that are caused by uncertainties in earthquake location and seismic moment. Our uncertainty estimates are relatively small and suggest that the evaluation metrics are relatively robust. Finally, we consider the implications of our results for a global earthquake forecast experiment.

  18. Comparison between ARIMA and DES Methods of Forecasting Population for Housing Demand in Johor

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alias Ahmad Rizal

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Forecasting accuracy is a primary criterion in selecting appropriate method of prediction. Even though there are various methods of forecasting however not all of these methods are able to predict with good accuracy. This paper presents an evaluation of two methods of population forecasting for housing demand. These methods are Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA and Double Exponential Smoothing (DES. Both of the methods are principally adopting univariate time series analysis which uses past and present data for forecasting. Secondary data obtained from Department of Statistics, Malaysia was used to forecast population for housing demand in Johor. Forecasting processes had generated 14 models to each of the methods and these models where evaluated using Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE. It was found that 14 of Double Exponential Smoothing models and also 14 of ARIMA models had resulted to 1.674% and 5.524% of average MAPE values respectively. Hence, the Double Exponential Smoothing method outperformed the ARIMA method by reducing 4.00 % in forecasting model population for Johor state. These findings help researchers and government agency in selecting appropriate forecasting model for housing demand.

  19. Multiscale seismicity analysis and forecasting: examples from the Western Pacific and Iceland

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eberhard, A. J.

    2014-01-01

    Seismicity forecasting has three major challenges: (1) the development of models or algorithms to forecast of seismicity, (2) the evaluation and testing of the forecasts and (3) the need for an appropriate software package. The goal of my thesis is to improve seismicity forecasting. I do this by contributing to a solution for all of the three challenges, using data from the West Pacific and from Iceland. The thesis is split into three chapters, each focusing on one of the challenges and each chapter will be (or already is) published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This first chapter (chapter 2 in this thesis) is about testing of seismic forecasts. The Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP, www.cseptesting.org; Jordan, 2006) has been conducting an earthquake forecast experiment in the western Pacific. The data and forecasts of this experiment serve as example for this chapter. For the three participating statistical models, I analyze the first four years of this experiment. I use likelihood-based metrics to evaluate the consistency of the forecasts with the observed target earthquakes, and I apply measures based on Student’s t-test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare the forecasts. I estimate also the uncertainties of the test results resulting from uncertainties in earthquake location and seismic moment. The estimated uncertainties are relatively small and suggest that the evaluation metrics are relatively robust. In chapter 3 I focus on the forecast itself with an Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF) experiment–forecasting seismicity in near real-time–for Iceland. The goal is to estimate the feasibility of OEF with the state-of-the-art models. I use the period between 2007 and 2010 and a sparsely processed catalogue as basis for a retrospective forecasting experiment with next-day forecasts. To better understand the effect of updating cycle on the probability gain I also use scheme in which the forecasts are

  20. Multiscale seismicity analysis and forecasting: examples from the Western Pacific and Iceland

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Eberhard, A. J.

    2014-07-01

    Seismicity forecasting has three major challenges: (1) the development of models or algorithms to forecast of seismicity, (2) the evaluation and testing of the forecasts and (3) the need for an appropriate software package. The goal of my thesis is to improve seismicity forecasting. I do this by contributing to a solution for all of the three challenges, using data from the West Pacific and from Iceland. The thesis is split into three chapters, each focusing on one of the challenges and each chapter will be (or already is) published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This first chapter (chapter 2 in this thesis) is about testing of seismic forecasts. The Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP, www.cseptesting.org; Jordan, 2006) has been conducting an earthquake forecast experiment in the western Pacific. The data and forecasts of this experiment serve as example for this chapter. For the three participating statistical models, I analyze the first four years of this experiment. I use likelihood-based metrics to evaluate the consistency of the forecasts with the observed target earthquakes, and I apply measures based on Student’s t-test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare the forecasts. I estimate also the uncertainties of the test results resulting from uncertainties in earthquake location and seismic moment. The estimated uncertainties are relatively small and suggest that the evaluation metrics are relatively robust. In chapter 3 I focus on the forecast itself with an Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF) experiment–forecasting seismicity in near real-time–for Iceland. The goal is to estimate the feasibility of OEF with the state-of-the-art models. I use the period between 2007 and 2010 and a sparsely processed catalogue as basis for a retrospective forecasting experiment with next-day forecasts. To better understand the effect of updating cycle on the probability gain I also use scheme in which the forecasts are

  1. Hanford's self-assessment of the solid waste forecast process

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hauth, J.; Skumanich, M.; Morgan, J.

    1996-01-01

    In fiscal year (FY) 1995 the forecast process used at Hanford to project future solid waste volumes was evaluated. Data on current and future solid waste generation are used by Hanford site planners to determine near-term and long-term planning needs. Generators who plan to ship their waste to Hanford's Solid Waste Program for treatment, storage, and disposal provide volume information on the types of waste that could be potentially generated, waste characteristics, and container types. Generators also provide limited radionuclide data and supporting assumptions. A self-assessment of the forecast process identified many effective working elements, including a well-established and systematic process for data collection, analysis and reporting; sufficient resources to obtain the necessary information; and dedicated support and analytic staff. Several areas for improvement were identified, including the need to improve confidence in the forecast data, integrate forecast data with other site-level and national data calls, enhance the electronic data collection system, and streamline the forecast process

  2. Load forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mak, H.

    1995-01-01

    Slides used in a presentation at The Power of Change Conference in Vancouver, BC in April 1995 about the changing needs for load forecasting were presented. Technological innovations and population increase were said to be the prime driving forces behind the changing needs in load forecasting. Structural changes, market place changes, electricity supply planning changes, and changes in planning objectives were other factors discussed. It was concluded that load forecasting was a form of information gathering, that provided important market intelligence

  3. Relating Tropical Cyclone Track Forecast Error Distributions with Measurements of Forecast Uncertainty

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-03-01

    CYCLONE TRACK FORECAST ERROR DISTRIBUTIONS WITH MEASUREMENTS OF FORECAST UNCERTAINTY by Nicholas M. Chisler March 2016 Thesis Advisor...March 2016 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED Master’s thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE RELATING TROPICAL CYCLONE TRACK FORECAST ERROR DISTRIBUTIONS...WITH MEASUREMENTS OF FORECAST UNCERTAINTY 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6. AUTHOR(S) Nicholas M. Chisler 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES

  4. GloFAS-Seasonal: Operational Seasonal Ensemble River Flow Forecasts at the Global Scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Emerton, Rebecca; Zsoter, Ervin; Smith, Paul; Salamon, Peter

    2017-04-01

    Seasonal hydrological forecasting has potential benefits for many sectors, including agriculture, water resources management and humanitarian aid. At present, no global scale seasonal hydrological forecasting system exists operationally; although smaller scale systems have begun to emerge around the globe over the past decade, a system providing consistent global scale seasonal forecasts would be of great benefit in regions where no other forecasting system exists, and to organisations operating at the global scale, such as disaster relief. We present here a new operational global ensemble seasonal hydrological forecast, currently under development at ECMWF as part of the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS). The proposed system, which builds upon the current version of GloFAS, takes the long-range forecasts from the ECMWF System4 ensemble seasonal forecast system (which incorporates the HTESSEL land surface scheme) and uses this runoff as input to the Lisflood routing model, producing a seasonal river flow forecast out to 4 months lead time, for the global river network. The seasonal forecasts will be evaluated using the global river discharge reanalysis, and observations where available, to determine the potential value of the forecasts across the globe. The seasonal forecasts will be presented as a new layer in the GloFAS interface, which will provide a global map of river catchments, indicating whether the catchment-averaged discharge forecast is showing abnormally high or low flows during the 4-month lead time. Each catchment will display the corresponding forecast as an ensemble hydrograph of the weekly-averaged discharge forecast out to 4 months, with percentile thresholds shown for comparison with the discharge climatology. The forecast visualisation is based on a combination of the current medium-range GloFAS forecasts and the operational EFAS (European Flood Awareness System) seasonal outlook, and aims to effectively communicate the nature of a seasonal

  5. Wavelet-based verification of the quantitative precipitation forecast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yano, Jun-Ichi; Jakubiak, Bogumil

    2016-06-01

    This paper explores the use of wavelets for spatial verification of quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF), and especially the capacity of wavelets to provide both localization and scale information. Two 24-h forecast experiments using the two versions of the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) on 22 August 2010 over Poland are used to illustrate the method. Strong spatial localizations and associated intermittency of the precipitation field make verification of QPF difficult using standard statistical methods. The wavelet becomes an attractive alternative, because it is specifically designed to extract spatially localized features. The wavelet modes are characterized by the two indices for the scale and the localization. Thus, these indices can simply be employed for characterizing the performance of QPF in scale and localization without any further elaboration or tunable parameters. Furthermore, spatially-localized features can be extracted in wavelet space in a relatively straightforward manner with only a weak dependence on a threshold. Such a feature may be considered an advantage of the wavelet-based method over more conventional "object" oriented verification methods, as the latter tend to represent strong threshold sensitivities. The present paper also points out limits of the so-called "scale separation" methods based on wavelets. Our study demonstrates how these wavelet-based QPF verifications can be performed straightforwardly. Possibilities for further developments of the wavelet-based methods, especially towards a goal of identifying a weak physical process contributing to forecast error, are also pointed out.

  6. Air Quality Forecasting through Different Statistical and Artificial Intelligence Techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mishra, D.; Goyal, P.

    2014-12-01

    Urban air pollution forecasting has emerged as an acute problem in recent years because there are sever environmental degradation due to increase in harmful air pollutants in the ambient atmosphere. In this study, there are different types of statistical as well as artificial intelligence techniques are used for forecasting and analysis of air pollution over Delhi urban area. These techniques are principle component analysis (PCA), multiple linear regression (MLR) and artificial neural network (ANN) and the forecasting are observed in good agreement with the observed concentrations through Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) at different locations in Delhi. But such methods suffers from disadvantages like they provide limited accuracy as they are unable to predict the extreme points i.e. the pollution maximum and minimum cut-offs cannot be determined using such approach. Also, such methods are inefficient approach for better output forecasting. But with the advancement in technology and research, an alternative to the above traditional methods has been proposed i.e. the coupling of statistical techniques with artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used for forecasting purposes. The coupling of PCA, ANN and fuzzy logic is used for forecasting of air pollutant over Delhi urban area. The statistical measures e.g., correlation coefficient (R), normalized mean square error (NMSE), fractional bias (FB) and index of agreement (IOA) of the proposed model are observed in better agreement with the all other models. Hence, the coupling of statistical and artificial intelligence can be use for the forecasting of air pollutant over urban area.

  7. Grey Forecast Rainfall with Flow Updating Algorithm for Real-Time Flood Forecasting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jui-Yi Ho

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available The dynamic relationship between watershed characteristics and rainfall-runoff has been widely studied in recent decades. Since watershed rainfall-runoff is a non-stationary process, most deterministic flood forecasting approaches are ineffective without the assistance of adaptive algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective flow forecasting system that integrates a rainfall forecasting model, watershed runoff model, and real-time updating algorithm. This study adopted a grey rainfall forecasting technique, based on existing hourly rainfall data. A geomorphology-based runoff model can be used for simulating impacts of the changing geo-climatic conditions on the hydrologic response of unsteady and non-linear watershed system, and flow updating algorithm were combined to estimate watershed runoff according to measured flow data. The proposed flood forecasting system was applied to three watersheds; one in the United States and two in Northern Taiwan. Four sets of rainfall-runoff simulations were performed to test the accuracy of the proposed flow forecasting technique. The results indicated that the forecast and observed hydrographs are in good agreement for all three watersheds. The proposed flow forecasting system could assist authorities in minimizing loss of life and property during flood events.

  8. Sales Forecasting System for Newspaper Distribution Companies in Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gencay İncesu

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE st1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Newspapers are like goods with a shelf life of one day and they have to be distributed daily basis to the sales points. A problem that most newspaper companies encounter daily is how to predict the right number of newspapers to print and distribute among distinct sales points. The aim is to predict newspaper demand as accurately as possible to meet customer need with minimum number of returns, missed sales and oversupply. This makes it necessary to develop a short-term forecasting system. The data taken from one of the largest distribution companies in Turkey is time dependent. Therefore, time series analysis is used to forecast newspaper circulation. In this paper, the newspaper sales system is examined for Turkey. Various types of forecasting techniques which are applicable to newspaper circulation planning are compared and a nonlinear approach for returns is applied.

  9. Prediction and error growth in the daily forecast of precipitation from the NCEP CFSv2 over the subdivisions of Indian subcontinent

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pandey, Dhruva Kumar; Rai, Shailendra; Sahai, A. K.; Abhilash, S.; Shahi, N. K.

    2016-02-01

    This study investigates the forecast skill and predictability of various indices of south Asian monsoon as well as the subdivisions of the Indian subcontinent during JJAS season for the time domain of 2001-2013 using NCEP CFSv2 output. It has been observed that the daily mean climatology of precipitation over the land points of India is underestimated in the model forecast as compared to observation. The monthly model bias of precipitation shows the dry bias over the land points of India and also over the Bay of Bengal, whereas the Himalayan and Arabian Sea regions show the wet bias. We have divided the Indian landmass into five subdivisions namely central India, southern India, Western Ghat, northeast and southern Bay of Bengal regions based on the spatial variation of observed mean precipitation in JJAS season. The underestimation over the land points of India during mature phase was originated from the central India, southern Bay of Bengal, southern India and Western Ghat regions. The error growth in June forecast is slower as compared to July forecast in all the regions. The predictability error also grows slowly in June forecast as compared to July forecast in most of the regions. The doubling time of predictability error was estimated to be in the range of 3-5 days for all the regions. Southern India and Western Ghats are more predictable in the July forecast as compared to June forecast, whereas IMR, northeast, central India and southern Bay of Bengal regions have the opposite nature.

  10. Short-term residential load forecasting: Impact of calendar effects and forecast granularity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lusis, Peter; Khalilpour, Kaveh Rajab; Andrew, Lachlan

    2017-01-01

    forecasting for a single-customer or even down at an appliance level. Access to high resolution data from smart meters has enabled the research community to assess conventional load forecasting techniques and develop new forecasting strategies suitable for demand-side disaggregated loads. This paper studies...... how calendar effects, forecasting granularity and the length of the training set affect the accuracy of a day-ahead load forecast for residential customers. Root mean square error (RMSE) and normalized RMSE were used as forecast error metrics. Regression trees, neural networks, and support vector...... regression yielded similar average RMSE results, but statistical analysis showed that regression trees technique is significantly better. The use of historical load profiles with daily and weekly seasonality, combined with weather data, leaves the explicit calendar effects a very low predictive power...

  11. A new ARMAX model based on evolutionary algorithm and particle swarm optimization for short-term load forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang, Bo; Tai, Neng-ling; Zhai, Hai-qing; Ye, Jian; Zhu, Jia-dong; Qi, Liang-bo

    2008-01-01

    In this paper, a new ARMAX model based on evolutionary algorithm and particle swarm optimization for short-term load forecasting is proposed. Auto-regressive (AR) and moving average (MA) with exogenous variables (ARMAX) has been widely applied in the load forecasting area. Because of the nonlinear characteristics of the power system loads, the forecasting function has many local optimal points. The traditional method based on gradient searching may be trapped in local optimal points and lead to high error. While, the hybrid method based on evolutionary algorithm and particle swarm optimization can solve this problem more efficiently than the traditional ways. It takes advantage of evolutionary strategy to speed up the convergence of particle swarm optimization (PSO), and applies the crossover operation of genetic algorithm to enhance the global search ability. The new ARMAX model for short-term load forecasting has been tested based on the load data of Eastern China location market, and the results indicate that the proposed approach has achieved good accuracy. (author)

  12. Space Weather Forecasting and Research at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aronne, M.

    2015-12-01

    The Space Weather Research Center (SWRC), within the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), provides experimental research forecasts and analysis for NASA's robotic mission operators. Space weather conditions are monitored to provide advance warning and forecasts based on observations and modeling using the integrated Space Weather Analysis Network (iSWA). Space weather forecasters come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from modelers to astrophysicists to undergraduate students. This presentation will discuss space weather operations and research from an undergraduate perspective. The Space Weather Research, Education, and Development Initiative (SW REDI) is the starting point for many undergraduate opportunities in space weather forecasting and research. Space weather analyst interns play an active role year-round as entry-level space weather analysts. Students develop the technical and professional skills to forecast space weather through a summer internship that includes a two week long space weather boot camp, mentorship, poster session, and research opportunities. My unique development of research projects includes studying high speed stream events as well as a study of 20 historic, high-impact solar energetic particle events. This unique opportunity to combine daily real-time analysis with related research prepares students for future careers in Heliophysics.

  13. Solar photovoltaic power forecasting using optimized modified extreme learning machine technique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manoja Kumar Behera

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Prediction of photovoltaic power is a significant research area using different forecasting techniques mitigating the effects of the uncertainty of the photovoltaic generation. Increasingly high penetration level of photovoltaic (PV generation arises in smart grid and microgrid concept. Solar source is irregular in nature as a result PV power is intermittent and is highly dependent on irradiance, temperature level and other atmospheric parameters. Large scale photovoltaic generation and penetration to the conventional power system introduces the significant challenges to microgrid a smart grid energy management. It is very critical to do exact forecasting of solar power/irradiance in order to secure the economic operation of the microgrid and smart grid. In this paper an extreme learning machine (ELM technique is used for PV power forecasting of a real time model whose location is given in the Table 1. Here the model is associated with the incremental conductance (IC maximum power point tracking (MPPT technique that is based on proportional integral (PI controller which is simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK software. To train single layer feed-forward network (SLFN, ELM algorithm is implemented whose weights are updated by different particle swarm optimization (PSO techniques and their performance are compared with existing models like back propagation (BP forecasting model. Keywords: PV array, Extreme learning machine, Maximum power point tracking, Particle swarm optimization, Craziness particle swarm optimization, Accelerate particle swarm optimization, Single layer feed-forward network

  14. A short-term ensemble wind speed forecasting system for wind power applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baidya Roy, S.; Traiteur, J. J.; Callicutt, D.; Smith, M.

    2011-12-01

    This study develops an adaptive, blended forecasting system to provide accurate wind speed forecasts 1 hour ahead of time for wind power applications. The system consists of an ensemble of 21 forecasts with different configurations of the Weather Research and Forecasting Single Column Model (WRFSCM) and a persistence model. The ensemble is calibrated against observations for a 2 month period (June-July, 2008) at a potential wind farm site in Illinois using the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) technique. The forecasting system is evaluated against observations for August 2008 at the same site. The calibrated ensemble forecasts significantly outperform the forecasts from the uncalibrated ensemble while significantly reducing forecast uncertainty under all environmental stability conditions. The system also generates significantly better forecasts than persistence, autoregressive (AR) and autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models during the morning transition and the diurnal convective regimes. This forecasting system is computationally more efficient than traditional numerical weather prediction models and can generate a calibrated forecast, including model runs and calibration, in approximately 1 minute. Currently, hour-ahead wind speed forecasts are almost exclusively produced using statistical models. However, numerical models have several distinct advantages over statistical models including the potential to provide turbulence forecasts. Hence, there is an urgent need to explore the role of numerical models in short-term wind speed forecasting. This work is a step in that direction and is likely to trigger a debate within the wind speed forecasting community.

  15. Retrospective Evaluation of the Five-Year and Ten-Year CSEP-Italy Earthquake Forecasts

    OpenAIRE

    Werner, M. J.; Zechar, J. D.; Marzocchi, W.; Wiemer, S.

    2010-01-01

    On 1 August 2009, the global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) launched a prospective and comparative earthquake predictability experiment in Italy. The goal of the CSEP-Italy experiment is to test earthquake occurrence hypotheses that have been formalized as probabilistic earthquake forecasts over temporal scales that range from days to years. In the first round of forecast submissions, members of the CSEP-Italy Working Group presented eighteen five-year and ten...

  16. From Tornadoes to Earthquakes: Forecast Verification for Binary Events Applied to the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan,Earthquake

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chien-Chih Chen

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Forecast verification procedures for statistical events with binary outcomes typically rely on the use of contingency tables and Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC diagrams. Originally developed for the statistical evaluation of tornado forecasts on a county-by-county basis, these methods can be adapted to the evaluation of competing earthquake forecasts. Here we apply these methods retrospectively to two forecasts for the M 7.3 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, earthquake. We show that a previously proposed forecast method that is based on evaluating changes in seismic intensity on a regional basis is superior to a forecast based only on the magnitude of seismic intensity in the same region. Our results confirm earlier suggestions that the earthquake preparation process for events such as the Chi-Chi earthquake involves anomalous activation or quiescence, and that signatures of these processes can be detected in seismicity data using appropriate methods.

  17. Strategic Forecasting

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Duus, Henrik Johannsen

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the area of strategic forecasting and its research directions and to put forward some ideas for improving management decisions. Design/methodology/approach: This article is conceptual but also informed by the author’s long contact...... and collaboration with various business firms. It starts by presenting an overview of the area and argues that the area is as much a way of thinking as a toolbox of theories and methodologies. It then spells out a number of research directions and ideas for management. Findings: Strategic forecasting is seen...... as a rebirth of long range planning, albeit with new methods and theories. Firms should make the building of strategic forecasting capability a priority. Research limitations/implications: The article subdivides strategic forecasting into three research avenues and suggests avenues for further research efforts...

  18. The oceanic forecasting system near the Shimokita Peninsula, Japan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    In, Teiji; Nakayama, Tomoharu; Matsuura, Yasutaka; Shima, Shigeki; Ishikawa, Yoichi; Awaji, Toshiyuki; Kobayashi, Takuya; Kawamura, Hideyuki; Togawa, Orihiko; Toyoda, Takahiro

    2007-01-01

    The oceanic forecasting system off the Shimokita Peninsula was constructed. To evaluate the performance of this system, we carried out the hindcast experiment for the oceanic conditions in 2003. The results showed the system had good reproducibility. Especially, it was able to reproduce the feature of seasonal variation of the Tsugaru Warm Water (TWW). We expect it has enough performance in actual forecasting. (author)

  19. Modeling Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index Using Weighted Geometric Brownian Motion Forecasts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gayo Willy

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index (PSEi is the main stock index of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE. PSEi is computed using a weighted mean of the top 30 publicly traded companies in the Philippines, called component stocks. It provides a single value by which the performance of the Philippine stock market is measured. Unfortunately, these weights, which may vary for every trading day, are not disclosed by the PSE. In this paper, we propose a model of forecasting the PSEi by estimating the weights based on historical data and forecasting each component stock using Monte Carlo simulation based on a Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM assumption. The model performance is evaluated and its forecast compared is with the results using a direct GBM forecast of PSEi over different forecast periods. Results showed that the forecasts using WGBM will yield smaller error compared to direct GBM forecast of PSEi.

  20. Electricity demand forecasting techniques

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gnanalingam, K.

    1994-01-01

    Electricity demand forecasting plays an important role in power generation. The two areas of data that have to be forecasted in a power system are peak demand which determines the capacity (MW) of the plant required and annual energy demand (GWH). Methods used in electricity demand forecasting include time trend analysis and econometric methods. In forecasting, identification of manpower demand, identification of key planning factors, decision on planning horizon, differentiation between prediction and projection (i.e. development of different scenarios) and choosing from different forecasting techniques are important

  1. Using Analog Ensemble to generate spatially downscaled probabilistic wind power forecasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Delle Monache, L.; Shahriari, M.; Cervone, G.

    2017-12-01

    We use the Analog Ensemble (AnEn) method to generate probabilistic 80-m wind power forecasts. We use data from the NCEP GFS ( 28 km resolution) and NCEP NAM (12 km resolution). We use forecasts data from NAM and GFS, and analysis data from NAM which enables us to: 1) use a lower-resolution model to create higher-resolution forecasts, and 2) use a higher-resolution model to create higher-resolution forecasts. The former essentially increases computing speed and the latter increases forecast accuracy. An aggregated model of the former can be compared against the latter to measure the accuracy of the AnEn spatial downscaling. The AnEn works by taking a deterministic future forecast and comparing it with past forecasts. The model searches for the best matching estimates within the past forecasts and selects the predictand value corresponding to these past forecasts as the ensemble prediction for the future forecast. Our study is based on predicting wind speed and air density at more than 13,000 grid points in the continental US. We run the AnEn model twice: 1) estimating 80-m wind speed by using predictor variables such as temperature, pressure, geopotential height, U-component and V-component of wind, 2) estimating air density by using predictors such as temperature, pressure, and relative humidity. We use the air density values to correct the standard wind power curves for different values of air density. The standard deviation of the ensemble members (i.e. ensemble spread) will be used as the degree of difficulty to predict wind power at different locations. The value of the correlation coefficient between the ensemble spread and the forecast error determines the appropriateness of this measure. This measure is prominent for wind farm developers as building wind farms in regions with higher predictability will reduce the real-time risks of operating in the electricity markets.

  2. Air Pollution Forecasts: An Overview.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bai, Lu; Wang, Jianzhou; Ma, Xuejiao; Lu, Haiyan

    2018-04-17

    Air pollution is defined as a phenomenon harmful to the ecological system and the normal conditions of human existence and development when some substances in the atmosphere exceed a certain concentration. In the face of increasingly serious environmental pollution problems, scholars have conducted a significant quantity of related research, and in those studies, the forecasting of air pollution has been of paramount importance. As a precaution, the air pollution forecast is the basis for taking effective pollution control measures, and accurate forecasting of air pollution has become an important task. Extensive research indicates that the methods of air pollution forecasting can be broadly divided into three classical categories: statistical forecasting methods, artificial intelligence methods, and numerical forecasting methods. More recently, some hybrid models have been proposed, which can improve the forecast accuracy. To provide a clear perspective on air pollution forecasting, this study reviews the theory and application of those forecasting models. In addition, based on a comparison of different forecasting methods, the advantages and disadvantages of some methods of forecasting are also provided. This study aims to provide an overview of air pollution forecasting methods for easy access and reference by researchers, which will be helpful in further studies.

  3. Air Pollution Forecasts: An Overview

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lu Bai

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Air pollution is defined as a phenomenon harmful to the ecological system and the normal conditions of human existence and development when some substances in the atmosphere exceed a certain concentration. In the face of increasingly serious environmental pollution problems, scholars have conducted a significant quantity of related research, and in those studies, the forecasting of air pollution has been of paramount importance. As a precaution, the air pollution forecast is the basis for taking effective pollution control measures, and accurate forecasting of air pollution has become an important task. Extensive research indicates that the methods of air pollution forecasting can be broadly divided into three classical categories: statistical forecasting methods, artificial intelligence methods, and numerical forecasting methods. More recently, some hybrid models have been proposed, which can improve the forecast accuracy. To provide a clear perspective on air pollution forecasting, this study reviews the theory and application of those forecasting models. In addition, based on a comparison of different forecasting methods, the advantages and disadvantages of some methods of forecasting are also provided. This study aims to provide an overview of air pollution forecasting methods for easy access and reference by researchers, which will be helpful in further studies.

  4. Air Pollution Forecasts: An Overview

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bai, Lu; Wang, Jianzhou; Lu, Haiyan

    2018-01-01

    Air pollution is defined as a phenomenon harmful to the ecological system and the normal conditions of human existence and development when some substances in the atmosphere exceed a certain concentration. In the face of increasingly serious environmental pollution problems, scholars have conducted a significant quantity of related research, and in those studies, the forecasting of air pollution has been of paramount importance. As a precaution, the air pollution forecast is the basis for taking effective pollution control measures, and accurate forecasting of air pollution has become an important task. Extensive research indicates that the methods of air pollution forecasting can be broadly divided into three classical categories: statistical forecasting methods, artificial intelligence methods, and numerical forecasting methods. More recently, some hybrid models have been proposed, which can improve the forecast accuracy. To provide a clear perspective on air pollution forecasting, this study reviews the theory and application of those forecasting models. In addition, based on a comparison of different forecasting methods, the advantages and disadvantages of some methods of forecasting are also provided. This study aims to provide an overview of air pollution forecasting methods for easy access and reference by researchers, which will be helpful in further studies. PMID:29673227

  5. Forecast Accuracy Uncertainty and Momentum

    OpenAIRE

    Bing Han; Dong Hong; Mitch Warachka

    2009-01-01

    We demonstrate that stock price momentum and earnings momentum can result from uncertainty surrounding the accuracy of cash flow forecasts. Our model has multiple information sources issuing cash flow forecasts for a stock. The investor combines these forecasts into an aggregate cash flow estimate that has minimal mean-squared forecast error. This aggregate estimate weights each cash flow forecast by the estimated accuracy of its issuer, which is obtained from their past forecast errors. Mome...

  6. Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting for Power System Operations

    KAUST Repository

    Zhu, Xinxin

    2012-04-01

    The emphasis on renewable energy and concerns about the environment have led to large-scale wind energy penetration worldwide. However, there are also significant challenges associated with the use of wind energy due to the intermittent and unstable nature of wind. High-quality short-term wind speed forecasting is critical to reliable and secure power system operations. This article begins with an overview of the current status of worldwide wind power developments and future trends. It then reviews some statistical short-term wind speed forecasting models, including traditional time series approaches and more advanced space-time statistical models. It also discusses the evaluation of forecast accuracy, in particular, the need for realistic loss functions. New challenges in wind speed forecasting regarding ramp events and offshore wind farms are also presented. © 2012 The Authors. International Statistical Review © 2012 International Statistical Institute.

  7. Load forecasting of supermarket refrigeration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rasmussen, Lisa Buth; Bacher, Peder; Madsen, Henrik

    2016-01-01

    methods for predicting the regimes are tested. The dynamic relation between the weather and the load is modeled by simple transfer functions and the non-linearities are described using spline functions. The results are thoroughly evaluated and it is shown that the spline functions are suitable...... for handling the non-linear relations and that after applying an auto-regressive noise model the one-step ahead residuals do not contain further significant information....... in Denmark. Every hour the hourly electrical load for refrigeration is forecasted for the following 42 h. The forecast models are adaptive linear time series models. The model has two regimes; one for opening hours and one for closing hours, this is modeled by a regime switching model and two different...

  8. Evaluating hydrological response to forecasted land-use change—scenario testing with the automated geospatial watershed assessment (AGWA) tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kepner, William G.; Semmens, Darius J.; Hernandez, Mariano; Goodrich, David C.

    2009-01-01

    Envisioning and evaluating future scenarios has emerged as a critical component of both science and social decision-making. The ability to assess, report, map, and forecast the life support functions of ecosystems is absolutely critical to our capacity to make informed decisions to maintain the sustainable nature of our ecosystem services now and into the future. During the past two decades, important advances in the integration of remote imagery, computer processing, and spatial-analysis technologies have been used to develop landscape information that can be integrated with hydrologic models to determine long-term change and make predictive inferences about the future. Two diverse case studies in northwest Oregon (Willamette River basin) and southeastern Arizona (San Pedro River) were examined in regard to future land use scenarios relative to their impact on surface water conditions (e.g., sediment yield and surface runoff) using hydrologic models associated with the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool. The base reference grid for land cover was modified in both study locations to reflect stakeholder preferences 20 to 60 yrs into the future, and the consequences of landscape change were evaluated relative to the selected future scenarios. The two studies provide examples of integrating hydrologic modeling with a scenario analysis framework to evaluate plausible future forecasts and to understand the potential impact of landscape change on ecosystem services.

  9. Accuracy gains of adding vote expectation surveys to a combined forecast of US presidential election outcomes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas Graefe

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available In averaging forecasts within and across four-component methods (i.e. polls, prediction markets, expert judgment and quantitative models, the combined PollyVote provided highly accurate predictions for the US presidential elections from 1992 to 2012. This research note shows that the PollyVote would have also outperformed vote expectation surveys, which prior research identified as the most accurate individual forecasting method during that time period. Adding vote expectations to the PollyVote would have further increased the accuracy of the combined forecast. Across the last 90 days prior to the six elections, a five-component PollyVote (i.e. including vote expectations would have yielded a mean absolute error of 1.08 percentage points, which is 7% lower than the corresponding error of the original four-component PollyVote. This study thus provides empirical evidence in support of two major findings from forecasting research. First, combining forecasts provides highly accurate predictions, which are difficult to beat for even the most accurate individual forecasting method available. Second, the accuracy of a combined forecast can be improved by adding component forecasts that rely on different data and different methods than the forecasts already included in the combination.

  10. Operational aspects of asynchronous filtering for flood forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rakovec, O.; Weerts, A. H.; Sumihar, J.; Uijlenhoet, R.

    2015-06-01

    This study investigates the suitability of the asynchronous ensemble Kalman filter (AEnKF) and a partitioned updating scheme for hydrological forecasting. The AEnKF requires forward integration of the model for the analysis and enables assimilation of current and past observations simultaneously at a single analysis step. The results of discharge assimilation into a grid-based hydrological model (using a soil moisture error model) for the Upper Ourthe catchment in the Belgian Ardennes show that including past predictions and observations in the data assimilation method improves the model forecasts. Additionally, we show that elimination of the strongly non-linear relation between the soil moisture storage and assimilated discharge observations from the model update becomes beneficial for improved operational forecasting, which is evaluated using several validation measures.

  11. Operational aspects of asynchronous filtering for hydrological forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rakovec, O.; Weerts, A. H.; Sumihar, J.; Uijlenhoet, R.

    2015-03-01

    This study investigates the suitability of the Asynchronous Ensemble Kalman Filter (AEnKF) and a partitioned updating scheme for hydrological forecasting. The AEnKF requires forward integration of the model for the analysis and enables assimilation of current and past observations simultaneously at a single analysis step. The results of discharge assimilation into a grid-based hydrological model for the Upper Ourthe catchment in the Belgian Ardennes show that including past predictions and observations in the data assimilation method improves the model forecasts. Additionally, we show that elimination of the strongly non-linear relation between the soil moisture storage and assimilated discharge observations from the model update becomes beneficial for improved operational forecasting, which is evaluated using several validation measures.

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    Data.gov (United States)

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    Data.gov (United States)

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    Data.gov (United States)

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