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Ensemble forecasting systems have become an important tool for estimating the uncertainties in initial conditions and model formulations and they are receiving increased attention from various applications. The Regional Ensemble Prediction System (REPS), which has operated at the Beijing Meteorological Service (BMS) since 2017, allows for probabilistic forecasts. However, it still suffers from systematic deficiencies during the first couple of forecast hours. This paper presents an integrated probabilistic nowcasting ensemble prediction system (NEPS) that is constructed by applying a mixed dynamic-integrated method. It essentially combines the uncertainty information (i.e., ensemble variance) provided by the REPS with the nowcasting method provided by the rapid-refresh deterministic nowcasting prediction system (NPS) that has operated at the Beijing Meteorological Service (BMS) since 2019. The NEPS provides hourly updated analyses and probabilistic forecasts in the nowcasting and short range (0–6 h) with a spatial grid spacing of 500 m. It covers the three meteorological parameters: temperature, wind, and precipitation. The outcome of an evaluation experiment over the deterministic and probabilistic forecasts indicates that the NEPS outperforms the REPS and NPS in terms of surface weather variables. Analysis of two cases demonstrates the superior reliability of the NEPS and suggests that the NEPS gives more details about the spatial intensity and distribution of the meteorological parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The air quality index (AQI), as an indicator to describe the degree of air pollution and its impact on health, plays an important role in improving the quality of the atmospheric environment. Accurate prediction of the AQI can effectively serve people's lives, reduce pollution control costs and improve the quality of the environment. In this paper, we constructed a combined prediction model based on real hourly AQI data in Beijing. First, we used singular spectrum analysis (SSA) to decompose the AQI data into different sequences, such as trend, oscillation component and noise. Then, bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) was introduced to predict the decomposed AQI data, and a light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) was used to integrate the predicted results. The experimental results show that the prediction effect of SSA-BiLSTM-LightGBM for the AQI data set is good on the test set. The root mean squared error (RMSE) reaches 0.6897, the mean absolute error (MAE) reaches 0.4718, the symmetric mean absolute percentage error (SMAPE) reaches 1.2712%, and the adjusted R2 reaches 0.9995. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the model output machine learning (MOML) method is proposed for simulating weather consultation, which can improve the forecast results of numerical weather prediction (NWP). During weather consultation, the forecasters obtain the final results by combining the observations with the NWP results and giving opinions based on their experience. It is obvious that using a suitable post-processing algorithm for simulating weather consultation is an interesting and important topic. MOML is a post-processing method based on machine learning, which matches NWP forecasts against observations through a regression function. By adopting different feature engineering of datasets and training periods, the observational and model data can be processed into the corresponding training set and test set. The MOML regression function uses an existing machine learning algorithm with the processed dataset to revise the output of NWP models combined with the observations, so as to improve the results of weather forecasts. To test the new approach for grid temperature forecasts, the 2-m surface air temperature in the Beijing area from the ECMWF model is used. MOML with different feature engineering is compared against the ECMWF model and modified model output statistics (MOS) method. MOML shows a better numerical performance than the ECMWF model and MOS, especially for winter. The results of MOML with a linear algorithm, running training period, and dataset using spatial interpolation ideas, are better than others when the forecast time is within a few days. The results of MOML with the Random Forest algorithm, year-round training period, and dataset containing surrounding gridpoint information, are better when the forecast time is longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]