Stochastic downscaling of precipitation with neural network conditional mixture models
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We present a new class of stochastic downscaling models, the conditional mixture models (CMMs), which builds on neural network models. CMMs are mixture models whose parameters are functions of predictor variables. These functions are implemented with a one‐layer feed‐forward neural network. By combining the approximation capabilities of mixtures and neural networks, CMMs can, in principle, represent arbitrary conditional distributions. We evaluate the CMMs at downscaling precipitation data at three stations in the French Mediterranean region. A discrete (Dirac) component is included in the mixture to handle the “no‐rain” events. Positive rainfall is modeled with a mixture of continuous densities, which can be either Gaussian, log‐normal, or hybrid Pareto (an extension of the generalized Pareto). CMMs are stochastic weather generators in the sense that they provide a model for the conditional density of local variables given large‐scale information. In this study, we did not look for the most appropriate set of predictors, and we settled for a decent set as the basis to compare the downscaling models. The set of predictors includes the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalyses sea level pressure fields on a 6 × 6 grid cell region surrounding the stations plus three date variables. We compare the three distribution families of CMMs with a simpler benchmark model, which is more common in the downscaling community. The difference between the benchmark model and CMMs is that positive rainfall is modeled with a single Gamma distribution. The results show that CMM with hybrid Pareto components outperforms both the CMM with Gaussian components and the benchmark model in terms of log‐likelihood. However, there is no significant difference with the log‐normal CMM. In general, the additional flexibility of mixture models, as opposed to using a single distribution, allows us to better represent the distribution of rainfall, both in the central part and in the upper tail.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".