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ABSTRACT Electricity demand is influenced by atmospheric conditions, and, therefore it is important to quantify their relationships suitably for accurate electricity demand forecasting and the implementation of power-saving policies. However, interdependencies and characteristics of covariance among meteorological variables within the same periodicities hinder the quantification of their direct and indirect impacts on electric power load. To investigate the strength of the direct correlation between atmospheric conditions and electric power load, this study harnessed a new partialization analysis method based on a partial phase synchronization index combined with wavelet transformation. The advantage of the proposed method is that it can be used to evaluate the degree of independent contribution of the variables over different spatiotemporal scales. Compared with traditional statistical analyses, this new partialization analysis shows that air temperature is the principal variable associated directly with electricity demand, but that the strength of the relationship varies with season and time scale. Relative humidity and wind speed have strong direct correlations with electricity in summer and winter, respectively. Insolation is directly coupled to the electric power load only on sub-diurnal time scales. This investigation indicates that for accurate forecasting of electricity demand, changes in the coupling strengths of different atmospheric variables should be incorporated into the electric power load forecasting process. The study shows that a partial phase synchronization index, combined with wavelet transformation, is a useful tool that could be used in other studies to assess complex interacting atmospheric oscillations that cannot be assessed properly by traditional approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For regional weather forecasts and climate predictions, it is important to determine the optimal domain size, location, and top height. A wide model domain can be chosen to avoid noises from lateral boundaries but this can include the Tibetan Plateau and areas of northern Manchuria to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Northeast Asia. This study shows that topographic regions around the Tibetan Plateau and warm pool areas over the Manchuria in an extended model domain may have harmful effects on the accuracy of short‐ to medium‐range regional predictions on the downwind side in spring. The inaccuracy is related to model errors due to steep terrain regions in the Tibetan Plateau and cold bias in the lower stratosphere north of Manchuria. Well‐designed spectral nudging over the eastern flank of the Tibetan Plateau and the use of a higher model top are found to improve regional predictions for Northeast Asia in spring by effectively eliminating errors associated with steep topography and temperature biases in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, respectively. Our findings suggest possible ways to mitigate biases due to steep mountains and upper‐level processes in regional modeling. We discuss the role of our method in terms of uncertainties in regional weather forecasts and climate predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]