Douglas W. Nychka
National Center for Atmospheric Research
A touchstone for the geosciences is the understanding and prediction of physical
systems through numerical models. Using modern statistical methods it is possible
to combine numerical models with statistical analysis to produce a synergy between
physical and data-based modeling. For numerical models this adds more flexibility
in representing complex subgrid scale phenomenon as stochastic processes. For
statistical research there is the challenge of finding compact and useful statistical
descriptions based on numerical model output. This talk gives examples of the
role of statistics across a range of temporal and spatial scales of geophysical
processes: developing parameterizations and analyzing output of global climate
models, combining data and model output for weather forecasts and using model
output to predict clear air turbulence.