The probability distribution of daily precipitation at the point and catchment scales in the United States
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Published:2018-12-17
Issue:12
Volume:22
Page:6519-6531
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ISSN:1607-7938
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Container-title:Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.
Author:
Ye Lei, Hanson Lars S., Ding Pengqi, Wang Dingbao, Vogel Richard M.ORCID
Abstract
Abstract. Choosing a probability distribution to represent daily precipitation depths
is important for precipitation frequency analysis, stochastic precipitation
modeling and in climate trend assessments. Early studies identified the
two-parameter gamma (G2) distribution as a suitable distribution for wet-day
precipitation based on the traditional goodness-of-fit tests. Here,
probability plot correlation coefficients and L-moment diagrams are used to
examine distributional alternatives for the wet-day series of daily
precipitation for hundreds of stations at the point and catchment scales in
the United States. Importantly, both Pearson Type-III (P3) and kappa (KAP)
distributions perform very well, particularly for point rainfall. Our analysis
indicates that the KAP distribution best describes the distribution of
wet-day precipitation at the point scale, whereas the performance of G2 and
P3 distributions are comparable for wet-day precipitation at the catchment
scale, with P3 generally providing the improved goodness of fit over G2.
Since the G2 distribution is currently the most widely used probability
density function, our findings could be considerably important, especially
within the context of climate change investigations.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Engineering,General Environmental Science
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