Search results for "forecasts"
showing 10 items of 18 documents
Adapting rail and road networks to weather extremes: Case studies for southern Germany and Austria
2013
Published version of an article in the journal: Natural Hazards. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0969-3 The assessment of the current impacts of extreme weather conditions on transport systems reveals high costs in specific locations. Prominent examples for Europe are the economic consequences of the harsh winter periods 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 and the floods in Austria, Eastern Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom in 2005 and 2007. Departing from the EC-funded project WEATHER, this paper delves into the subject of adaptation strategies by revisiting the project’s general findings on adaptation strategies and by adding two specific cases: (1) adv…
Performance of DEMETER calibration for rainfall forecasting purposes: Application to the July–August Sahelian rainfall
2008
International audience; This work assesses and compares the skill of direct and model-output-statistics (MOS) calibrated hindcasts of the July–August rainfall amounts for the dry period 1980–2000 over the Sahel issued from the Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction (DEMETER) experiment, with the aim to highlight among the simulated parameters, i.e., those potentially relevant for rainfall forecasts purposes. Three approaches were used: the DEMETER (1) direct rainfall, (2) MOS-calibrated rainfall, and (3) MOS-calibrated atmospheric dynamics and energy. Canonical correlation analyses (CCA) were employed in the two latter approaches to calib…
L-Band vegetation optical depth for crop phenology monitoring and crop yield assessment
2018
Vegetation Optical Depth (VOD) at L-band is highly sensitive to the water content and above-ground biomass of vegetation. Hence, it has great potential for monitoring crop phenology and for providing crop yield forecasts. Recently, the Multi-Temporal Dual Channel Algorithm (MT -DCA) has been proposed to retrieve L-band VOD from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) measurements. In previous research, SMAP VOD has been compared to crop phenology and has been used to derive crop yield estimates. Here, we review and expand these initial research studies. In particular, we quantify the capability of VOD to detect different crop stages, and test different VOD metrics (i.e., maximum, range and inte…
Knowing is half the battle: Seasonal forecasts, adaptive cropping systems, and the mediating role of private markets in Zambia
2019
Abstract This paper examines how smallholders living in regions where a drought is forecasted adapt their farm practices in response to receiving seasonal forecast information. The article draws on a unique longitudinal dataset in Zambia, which collected information from farm households before and after a significant drought caused by the 2015/2016 El-Nino Southern Oscillation. It finds that farmers residing in areas forecasted to be drought-affected and receiving seasonal forecast information are significantly more likely to integrate drought tolerant crops into their cropping systems compared to similar households not receiving this information. Moreover, the probability that a farmer imp…
The value of local climate and weather information: an economic valuation of the decentralised meteorological provision in Kenya
2020
The development of Sub-Saharan Africa will become increasingly constrained by the acute climate sensitivity of livelihood practices. Weather and climate services can improve climate risks to development by informing plans and decisions that ultimately reduce losses/maximize beneficial opportunities from climate variability and change. Yet, such services are typically highly aggregated, and notoriously difficult to communicate, especially to smallholder farmers and pastoralists where the need is greatest. Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) are decentralizing service provision, and in so doing, offering disaggregated, contextualized, and more easily understandable localized weather and sea…
Inflation anchoring and growth: The role of credit constraints
2022
Abstract Can inflation anchoring foster growth? To answer this question, we use panel data on sectoral growth for 22 manufacturing industries from 39 advanced and emerging market economies over 1990–2014 and employ a difference-in-differences strategy based on the theoretical prediction that higher inflation uncertainty particularly depresses investment in industries that are more credit constrained. Industries characterized by high external financial dependence, liquidity needs, and R&D intensity, and low asset tangibility, tend to grow faster in countries with well-anchored inflation expectations. The results, based on an IV approach—using indicators of monetary policy transparency and ce…
Does the interaction between the accounting method choice and disclosure affect financial analysts’ information environment? The case of joint ventur…
2017
IAS 31 allowed firms to choose between proportionate consolidation and the equity method to record joint ventures in the consolidated accounts of the venturer. Moreover, this election implied a decision about including information in the primary financial statements or in the notes. This paper investigates if financial analysts perceive accounting information differently depending on the method chosen conditioned to the disclosure of the required information in the notes. We analysed a sample of Spanish firms during 2005–2010. We not only considered earnings forecasts, but also examined target prices and stock recommendations. Furthemore, we look at how this accounting choice affects analys…
Identification and Handling of Critical Irradiance Forecast Errors Using a Random Forest Scheme – A Case Study for Southern Brazil
2015
Abstract Large forecast errors of solar power prediction cause challenges for the management of electric grids. Here, the classification technique Random Forests is applied to analyze the possible linkage of hourly or daily forecast errors to the actual situation given by a set of meteorological variables. This form a prediction of the forecast error and is thus usable to update the forecast. The performance of this scheme is assessed for the example of irradiance forecasts in Brazil. While limited to none improvements are obtained for next-hour forecasts, significant improvements are obtained for the next-day forecasts.
Association between climate and new daily diagnoses of COVID-19
2020
AbstractBackgroundAlthough evidence is accumulating that climate conditions may positively or negatively influence the scale of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks, uncertainty remains concerning the real impact of climate factors on viral transmission. Methods. The number of new daily cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in Verona (Italy) was retrieved from the official website of Veneto Region, while information on daily weather parameters in the same area was downloaded from IlMeteo website, a renowned Italian technological company specialized in weather forecasts. The search period ranged between March 1 to November 11, 2020. The number of new daily COVID-19 cases and meteorological da…
Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Africa team
2021
Abstract COVID-19 disrupted international tourism worldwide, subsequently presenting forecasters with a challenging conundrum. In this competition, we predict international arrivals for 20 destinations in two phases: (i) Ex post forecasts pre-COVID; (ii) Ex ante forecasts during and after the pandemic up to end 2021. Our results show that univariate combined with cross-sectional hierarchical forecasting techniques (THieF-ETS) outperform multivariate models pre-COVID. Scenarios were developed based on judgemental adjustment of the THieF-ETS baseline forecasts. Analysts provided a regional view on the most likely path to normal, based on country-specific regulations, macroeconomic conditions,…