Forecast Verification: A Practitioner's Guide in Atmospheric Science

This handy reference introduces the subject of forecast verification and provides a review of the basic concepts, discussing different types of data that may be forecast.

Each chapter covers a different type of predicted quantity (predictand), then looks at some of the relationships between economic value and skill scores, before moving on to review the key concepts and summarise aspects of forecast verification that receive the most attention in other disciplines.

The book concludes with a discussion on the most important topics in the field that are the subject of current research or that would benefit from future research.

• An easy to read guide of current techniques with real life case studies

• An up-to-date and practical introduction to the different techniques and an examination of their strengths and weaknesses

• Practical advice given by some of the world?s leading forecasting experts

• Case studies and illustrations of actual verification and its interpretation

• Comprehensive glossary and consistent statistical and mathematical definition of commonly used terms

For more than 100 years, meteorologists have been making forecasts of weather and climatic events. In order to judge the quality of these forecasts and improve forecasting systems, scientists working in this field have developed and applied many different verification and evaluation techniques and scores. Forecast verification is concerned with judging how good are these systems and forecasts.

This book begins with an introduction to the subject of forecast verification and a review of the basic concepts, discussing different types of data that may be forecast before moving on to the main chapters, where each chapter covers a different type of predicted quantity (predictand). This book then looks at some of the relationships between economic value and skill scores, and finally moves on to review the key concepts and summarise aspects of forecast verification that receive the most attention in other disciplines. The book concludes with a discussion on the most important topics in the field that are the subject of current research or that would benefit from future research.

Key features of this book includes:

• An easy to read guide of current techniques with real life case studies
• An up to date and practical introduction to the different techniques and an examination of their strengths and weaknesses
• Practical advice given by some of the world's leading forecasting experts
• Case studies and illustrations of actual verification and its interpretation
• Comprehensive glossary and consistent statistical and mathematical definition of commonly used terms

This book will be a handy reference for forecast practitioners in Government and private sector organisations involved in environmental forecasting such as national weather services and climate centres, meteorological and climatological consultants to business and public decision makers, and those who are involved in developing forecasting systems, using forecast products or making decisions based on forecast.

This book is suitable for postgraduates and researchers in forecasting studies, climatology, meteorology and those in the atmospheric oceanic and environmental science community. It is also a useful supplementary textbook for undergraduates in environmental science, climatology and meteorology.