Investigating contemporary questions in climate science from a modern statistical perspective
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The recent "hiatus" in global warming has been the subject of much scrutiny and debate, both in the scientific community and in the public discourse. The implications of the alleged hiatus call into question the reliability of climate models and the need for mitigating anthropogenic contributions to warming. The observed change in the relationship between temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the hiatus period has also raised questions regarding model-based estimates of climate sensitivity. The aim of this dissertation is to make sense of some of the current compelling questions in climate science in a rigorous way. An important component in this is to develop and apply modern statistical methodology, with the explicit goal of informing the scientific debate. We formally consider the hypothesis of a recent "hiatus" in global warming with the aid of quantitative statistical methods. We also investigate the related assertion that despite increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures have not followed suit. We develop a general methodology to test for a difference between two populations, even when one population has a fixed, small sample size. The method applies quite generally, as we are able to account for arbitrary temporal dependence in the data without explicitly modeling the temporal structure (under minimal stationarity assumptions). We additionally consider two scientific hypotheses that consider surface warming at a regional scale. Appropriate statistical methods are used to account for multiple hypothesis testing, temporal dependence, and spatial dependence.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Tsiang, Michael |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Environmental Earth System Science. |
| Primary advisor | Rajaratnam, Balakanapathy |
| Thesis advisor | Rajaratnam, Balakanapathy |
| Thesis advisor | Chamberlain, C. Page |
| Thesis advisor | Diffenbaugh, Noah S |
| Thesis advisor | Romano, Joseph P, 1960- |
| Advisor | Chamberlain, C. Page |
| Advisor | Diffenbaugh, Noah S |
| Advisor | Romano, Joseph P, 1960- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Michael Tsiang. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Environmental Earth System Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Michael Te-Cheng Tsiang
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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