Spatial connections in extreme precipitation events obtained from NWP forecasts: A complex network approach

Understanding the spatial variability of extreme precipitation events (EPEs) has always been a challenging task, with climate change further complicating the issue. Many studies have looked into the spatiotemporal characteristics of EPEs and the possibility of them being connected. Most of these studies are based on observation data products which inform about the events after they have occurred. Various Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs) obtained from the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models such as those of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), and UK Met Office (UKMO) are available which inform about the precipitation events before they have occurred. In this study, we inter-evaluate four gridded (deterministic) QPFs over the Ganga River basin of India for their ability to detect the spatial connections among EPEs during the monsoon months, i.e., June, July, August and September (JJAS). Several experimental runs are performed in multiple time periods (13, 6 and 4 years) at various percentile thresholds (85th, 90th and 95th percentile) at two spatial resolutions of 25 and 50-km. Moreover, we also evaluate the forecast patterns of the QPF obtained from the national agency of India, i.e., NCMRWF and analyse its performance with respect to the other three selected QPFs from international agencies. For the observation/reference dataset, the gridded Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) dataset is selected. We first use the deterministic and dichotomous error statistics to evaluate the performance of NWP forecasts. Further, we employ the theory of complex networks to create networks of extreme precipitation at each grid. With this work, we aim to answer (a) can the theory of complex networks be a feasible tool for evaluating the performance of NWP forecasts in detecting extreme precipitation behaviour; (b) does the change in temporal length of the NWP forecasts influence the spatial structure of extreme precipitation as observed before, and (c) can a global NWP model, larger in length, be used as a potential substitute to the NCMRWF model. The ECMWF model performs well with respect to IMD as the average CC for TP_13 is 0.42 while they are 0.31 and 0.34 for TP_6 and TP_4, respectively. Also, we find that ECMWF can be a suitable substitute for the NCMRWF model. The identification of a substitute precipitation forecast, larger in temporal length, can be beneficial as input in hydrological models for streamflow forecasting and estimating parameters for bias correction of precipitation, among others.

Automated summary

Understanding the spatial variability of extreme precipitation events is a challenging task, especially with the complications brought by climate change. In this study, the researchers evaluated the performance of four gridded Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs) in detecting the spatial connections among extreme precipitation events in the Ganga River basin of India. The study found that the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model performed well and could be a suitable substitute for the national agency model.