Quantile-based bias correction for

global climate model precipitation

data in Bagmati river basin, Nepal

B.K. Mishra, S. Herath

United Nations University - Institute for Sustainability and Peace

January 7, 2011

1
 Introduction

One of the greatest challenges facing modern society in a

changing climate is the management of risk (R)
associated with hydrological extremes, namely floods and
droughts.

1 N
R  1  (1  )
T

2
 Introduction

• Global Climate Models (GCM) output are used to force

hydrological simulations for risk assessment of climate
change impacts on the extreme events.

• However, GCM outputs are often characterized by

biases and coarse resolution that limit their application
for basin level hydrological modeling.

3
 Introduction

GCM output should be utilized in climate change impact

studies only after due consideration on its coarse
resolution and biasness i.e., by
 Downscaling
 Bias correction

4
 Introduction

Recently, many GCMs are available with high spatial and

temporal resolution output data.
e.g., MRI-GCM output available at 20-km daily/hourly
resolution

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 High resolution climate models ( Souce: Akio KITOH (MRI) ppt)
MRI / JMA / AESTO

CMIP3 CGCM High-resolution Regional cloud

global atmospheric resolving model
Multi-model model by nesting
110-180km mesh 20km mesh 5km & 1km mesh

Atmos Predicted Atmos Boundary

phere phere condition
SST
SST SST
Ocean Boundary Future
condition
50-100km mesh Near
Present Future
SST
SST=Sea Surface Year
Temperature 1979-2003 2015-2039 2075-2099 6
 Objective

• Here, the MRI-GCM daily precipitation data will be

used in Bagmati river basin of Nepal for climate change
impact studies.
• This daily GCM precipitation data can be considered
acceptable from spatial/temporal resolution point of
view for the present study basin.
However, gap exists in term of biases. This research
intends to develop an innovative technique to minimize
the biases in the GCM output.

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 Study area

Bagmati river basin, Nepal 8

 Study area

• Catchment area = 2750 km2

• Capital city is situated in this basin
• Annual rainfall is 1900 mm
• About 80% rainfall takes place during July-Sept.
• Daily precipitation data is available of past 40 years at seven
stations from Department of Hydrology and Meteorology,
Nepal

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 Study area

7 grid boxes of the MRI-GCM covers most of the

study area.

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11
Rainfall Annual No. of wet days Maximum
Type rainfall, mm per year rainfall, mm
Observed 1523 133 (4.37 months) 177
GCM 1593 244 (8.02 months) 88.1

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13
 Relative
Month
error (%)
Jan 27
Feb 87.8
Mar 25.7
Apr 5.6
May 39.5
Jun 21.6
Jul -17.2
Aug -19.1
Sep 8.5
Oct 66.9
Nov 172.7
Dec -9.8

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15
Limitations with GCM precipitation output

• Too many wet days (i.e. rainfall frequency)

• Smaller rainfall values (i.e. rainfall intensity)

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 Quantile-based bias correction

In this approach, bias correction of daily rainfall is based on

following two considerations:

• Rainfall frequency is corrected by truncating the distribution of

the GCM daily rainfall based on the non-exceedance probability,
F(x_historical=0.0),

• Rainfall intensity is corrected by adjusting cumulative

distribution functions (CDFs) of the truncated non-zero rainfall
days (i.e. CDF_gcm→CDF_historical)

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Correcting Bias in Daily GCM Output:
Rainfall Frequency

F(xhist=0.0)

GCM
Historical
F(xGCM=0.0)
0
0 Daily rainfall (x) mm

calibrated
threshold
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 1
Non-exceedance probability, F

0.9

0.8 Before correction

0.7
GCM8503
0.6 Observed
0.5 GCM1539

0.4

0.3
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200
1
Rainfall, mm
0.9

Non-exceedance probability, F
After correction
0.8

0.7

0.6 GCM8503
0.5 Observed
GCM1539
0.4

0.3

0.2
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200
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Rainfall, mm
 No. of wet days per year
GCM20 GCM21
Observed
Before correction After correction Before correction After correction
132.9 243.63 132.79 237.6 133.2

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 Correcting Bias in Daily GCM Output:
Rainfall Intensity
1
x  F ( FGCM ( xi ))
'
i obs

1
F(xi)
F(x)

GCM
Historical
0
0 xi 0 x'i
Daily rainfall (x), mm
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 Using gamma distribution
It is widely recognized that the distribution of daily
precipitation can be approximated by the gamma distribution.
With the shape (α) and scale (β) parameters, gamma distribution can
be expressed by the following probability density function (PDF)
and cumulative distribution function (CDF):
1  1 x
f ( x)   x exp(  )
 ( ) 
x
F ( x)   f (t )dt
xTrunc

For bias correction, the CDF of the daily GCM rainfall FGCM(x) is compared with the CDF
of the daily observation rainfall Fobs (x). The bias corrected GCM rainfall (x’GCM) can then
be calculated as:  1
xGCM  Fobs ( FGCM ( x)) 22
Major steps for rainfall intensity correction:

1. Split the observation and truncated GCM values into extreme values and other values
2. Fit a gamma distribution for observed daily precipitation series– Fobs(xobs)
3. Fit a gamma distribution for GCM precipitation of the same period – FGCM20(xGCM20)
4. Fit a gamma distribution for 21st century GCM precipitation – FGCM21(xGCM21)
5. Map the GCM distributions onto observed distribution

1
xGCM 20corrected  F ( FGCM 20 ( xGCM 20 ))
obs

6. Correct the future GCM output with the scale of corrected/raw GCM results

1
Fobs ( FGCM 21( xGCM 21))
xGCM 21corrected  xGCM 21 1
FGCM 20 ( FGCM 21( xGCM 21))
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 Extreme values correction
In this study, extreme values corresponds to top 0.1% probability
of non-exceedance.

All of the daily precipitation Extreme (top 0.1%) values correction

Probability of non-exceedance
Probability of non-exceedance

Top 0.1%
GCM21
GCM21
GCM20
GCM20
GCM21corrected
Observation
Observation

Daily Precipitation Daily precipitation

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 Probability of non-xceedance
Other values correction
GCM21 Except top 0.1%
1. Samples except top 0.1% of observation,
GCM present and future truncated data GCM20
series are divided into each month.
2. The ratio between observation and
GCM20 is estimated for each month and Observation
each quantile is regarded as correction
coefficient and multiplied to GCM21 of
Daily Precipitation Samples except top
same month and same quantile and
0.1% is divided into
corrected value is obtained. each month.
Probability of Non Exceedance

Probability of Non Exceedance

Probability of Non Exceedance

January
February
Daily Precipitation December
Daily Precipitation
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Daily Precipitation
26
 Relative error (%)
Month
GCM GCMcorr
Jan 27 47.2
Feb 87.8 16.9
Mar 25.7 20.2
Apr 5.6 24.9
May 39.5 25.3
Jun 21.6 -13.5
Jul -17.2 -10.8
Aug -19.1 -11.4
Sep 8.5 -7.6
Oct 66.9 41.7
Nov 172.7 -8
Dec -9.8 -2.1

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 Conclusive remarks

• Comparison of GCM data series with observation data

series pointed to correct rainfall frequency and
intensity.
• Truncation of GCM data series based on the non-
exceedance probability, F(x_historical=0.0) noticeably
improved the rainfall frequency bias.
• The quantile-based bias correction considerably
improved rainfall intensity for monsoon months (May -
October).

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 Future works

• Testing other probable frequency distributions to the

precipitation data series for better bias correction
• Application of bias-corrected data-series in
hydrological modeling to investigate impact of climate
change on streamflow

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Thank you!

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