Performance Evaluation of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA)

Lespinas, Franck; Fortin, Vincent; Roy, Guy; Rasmussen, Peter; Stadnyk, Tricia A.

doi:10.1175/jhm-d-14-0191.1

Cited by 113 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

126

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A number of limited-area precipitation analysis systems based on the univariate optimum interpolation algorithm are described, for example, in Bhargava and Danard (1994), Ha¨ggmark et al (2000), Mahfouf et al (2007) and recently in Lespinas et al (2015). Conceptually, the systems differ through the choice of the variable defined to carry out the analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach was also applied at ECMWF by Lopez (2011) in their 4D-Var data assimilation system. Recently, Lespinas et al (2015) presented an assessment of the operational Canadian precipitation analysis system [initially developed by Mahfouf et al (2007)] in which the analysis is performed on a cubic-root transformed variable as proposed by Fortin (2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

High-resolution precipitation re-analysis system for climatological purposes

Soci

Bazile

Besson

et al. 2016

Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A B S T R A C TIn this article, we describe the design and the validation of the Mescan precipitation analysis system developed for climatological purposes under the EURO4M project. The system is based on an optimal interpolation algorithm using the 24-h aggregated gauge measurements from the surface network. The background fields are the total accumulated precipitation forecasts at different resolutions from the ALADIN or HIRLAM mesoscale models, downscaled to 5.5 km grid spacing, chosen to match the time period of the climatological gauge reports. The validation of the Mescan system is carried out over the French territory employing various metrics and by providing forcing to a hydrological model to produce river discharges. The investigations have shown that the precipitation analyses have almost the same quality as the well-validated SAFRAN analysis system. In addition, the analysis of the precipitation variance spectra computed on the same horizontal domain has indicated that at short wavelengths the downscaled fields have significantly lower variability than a field produced by time integrating a forecast model. The Mescan precipitation analysis system has successfully been used to produce 24-h total accumulated precipitation re-analyses on a 5.5 km grid over Europe for the period 2007Á2010.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-resolution precipitation re-analysis system for climatological purposes

Soci

Bazile

Besson

et al. 2016

Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Specifically, we compare simulated precipitation (Fig. 2) to the regional deterministic configuration of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA-RDPA; Lespinas et al 2015). We used version 4.0 (v4.0) of CaPA; in addition to the gauge networks identified in Lespinas et al (2015), CaPA v4.0 assimilates Canadian and U.S. radar data following Fortin et al (2015).…”

Section: Verifying Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They found that driving the model with an early experimental version of CaPA (Mahfouf et al 2007) versus precipitation simulated by a regional version of GEM with a 15-km horizontal resolution (Mailhot et al 2006) degraded the Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient for Lake Erie but improved it by 0.06 for Lake Ontario. Deficiencies found in this early version of the analysis (Carrera et al 2010) (Lespinas et al 2015). In version 3.0, the assimilation of radar data was added .…”

Section: Model Verificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward an Operational Water Cycle Prediction System for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River

Durnford

Fortin

Smith

et al. 2018

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this time of a changing climate, it is important to know whether lake levels will rise, potentially causing flooding, or river flows will dry up during abnormally dry weather. The Great Lakes region is the largest freshwater lake system in the world. Moreover, agriculture, industry, commerce, and shipping are active in this densely populated region. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) recently implemented the Water Cycle Prediction System (WCPS) over the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River watershed (WCPS-GLS version 1.0) following a decade of research and development. WCPS, a network of linked models, simulates the complete water cycle, following water as it moves from the atmosphere to the surface, through the river network and into lakes, and back to the atmosphere. Information concerning the water cycle is passed between the models. WCPS is the first short-to-medium-range prediction system of the complete water cycle to be run on an operational basis anywhere. It currently produces two forecasts per day for the next three days. WCPS generally provides reliable results throughout the length of the forecast. The transmission of errors between the component models is reduced by data assimilation. Interactions between the environmental compartments are active. This ongoing intercommunication is valuable for extreme events such as rapid ice freeze-up and flooding or drought caused by abnormal amounts of precipitation. Products include precipitation; evaporation; lake water levels, temperatures, and currents; ice cover; and river flows. These products are of interest to a wide variety of governmental, commercial, and industrial groups, as well as the public.

show abstract

“…Two precipitation datasets were used as input: the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA; Lespinas et al, 2015), and a Thiessen polygon interpolation of the Global Historical Climatology Network -Daily (GHCND; Menne et al, 2012). CaPA is a near-real-time quantitative precipitation estimate product from ECCC that is available on a 10 km grid for all of North America (http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/cmoi/ product_guide/submenus/capa_e.html).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A hydrological prediction system based on the SVS land-surface scheme: efficient calibration of GEM-Hydro for streamflow simulation over the Lake Ontario basin

Gaborit

Fortin

Xinwen

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This work explores the potential of the distributed GEM-Hydro runoff modeling platform, developed at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) over the last decade. More precisely, the aim is to develop a robust implementation methodology to perform reliable streamflow simulations with a distributed model over large and partly ungauged basins, in an efficient manner. The latest version of GEM-Hydro combines the SVS (Soil, Vegetation and Snow) land-surface scheme and the WATROUTE routing scheme. SVS has never been evaluated from a hydrological point of view, which is done here for all major rivers flowing into Lake Ontario. Two established hydrological models are confronted to GEM-Hydro, namely MESH and WATFLOOD, which share the same routing scheme (WATROUTE) but rely on different land-surface schemes. All models are calibrated using the same meteorological forcings, objective function, calibration algorithm, and basin delineation. GEM-Hydro is shown to be competitive with MESH and WATFLOOD: the NSE √ (Nash-Sutcliffe criterion computed on the square root of the flows) is for example equal to 0.83 for MESH and GEM-Hydro in validation on the Moira River basin, and to 0.68 for WATFLOOD. A computationally efficient strategy is proposed to calibrate SVS: a simple unit hydrograph is used for routing instead of WATROUTE. Global and local calibration strategies are compared in order to estimate runoff for ungauged portions of the Lake Ontario basin.Overall, streamflow predictions obtained using a global calibration strategy, in which a single parameter set is identified for the whole basin of Lake Ontario, show accuracy comparable to the predictions based on local calibration: the average NSE √ in validation and over seven subbasins is 0.73 and 0.61, respectively for local and global calibrations. Hence, global calibration provides spatially consistent parameter values, robust performance at gauged locations, and reduces the complexity and computation burden of the calibration procedure. This work contributes to the Great Lakes Runoff Inter-comparison Project for Lake Ontario (GRIP-O), which aims at improving Lake Ontario basin runoff simulations by comparing different models using the same input forcings. The main outcome of this study consists in a new generalizable methodology for implementing a distributed hydrologic model with a high computation cost in an efficient and reliable manner, over a large area with ungauged portions, using global calibration and a unit hydrograph to replace the routing component.

show abstract

Performance Evaluation of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA)

Cited by 113 publications

References 35 publications

High-resolution precipitation re-analysis system for climatological purposes

High-resolution precipitation re-analysis system for climatological purposes

Toward an Operational Water Cycle Prediction System for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River

A hydrological prediction system based on the SVS land-surface scheme: efficient calibration of GEM-Hydro for streamflow simulation over the Lake Ontario basin

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About