Pam Frost Gorder - Statistical Analysis Projects Future Temperatures In North America
For the first time, researchers have been able to combine different climate models using spatial statistics - to project future seasonal temperature changes in regions across North America. They performed advanced statistical analysis on two different North American regional climate models and were able to estimate projections of temperature changes for the years 2041 to 2070, as well as the certainty of those projections.
The analysis, developed by statisticians at Ohio State University, examines groups of regional climate models, finds the commonalities between them, and determines how much weight each individual climate projection should get in a consensus climate estimate.
Through maps on the statisticians' website, people can see how their own region's temperature will likely change by 2070 - overall, and for individual seasons of the year.
Given the complexity and variety of climate models produced by different research groups around the world, there is a need for a tool that can analyze groups of them together, explained Noel Cressie, professor of statistics and director of Ohio State's Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics.
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