comments on “calibrated surface temperature forecasts from the.pdfVIP

Comments on “Calibrated Surface Temperature Forecasts from the Canadian Ensemble Prediction System Using Bayesian Model Averaging” Thomas M. Hamill NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Physical Sciences Division Boulder, Colorado Submitted to Monthly Weather Review 17 October 2006 (revised) Corresponding author address Dr. Thomas M. Hamill NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division R/PSD 1, 325 Broadway Boulder, CO 80305 1 1. Introduction. Wilson et al. (2006, hereafter W06) recently described the application of the Bayesian model averaging (BMA, Raftery et al. 2005, hereafter R05) calibration technique to surface temperature forecasts using the Canadian ensemble prediction system. The BMA technique as applied in W06 produced an adjusted probabilistic forecast from an ensemble through a two-step procedure. The first step was the correction of biases of individual members through regression analyses. The second step was the fitting of a Gaussian kernel around each bias-corrected member of the ensemble. The amount of weight applied to each member ’s kernel and the width of the kernel(s) were set through an Estimation-Maximization (EM) algorithm (Dempster et al. 1997). The final probability density function (pdf) was a sum of the weighted kernels. W06 reported (their Fig. 2) that at any given instant, a maj ority of the ensemble members were typically assigned zero weight, while a few select members received the maj ority of the weight. Which members received large weights varied from one day to the n