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Spatial-temporal Bayesian hierarchical model for summer monsoon precipitation extremes over India
  • WILLIAM KLEIBER,
  • Álvaro Ossandón,
  • Balaji Rajagopalan
WILLIAM KLEIBER
University of Colorado Boulder

Corresponding Author:william.kleiber@colorado.edu

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Álvaro Ossandón
University of Colorado Boulder
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Balaji Rajagopalan
University of Colorado at Boulder
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Abstract

India receives more than 80% of annual rainfall during the summer monsoon season of June – September. Extreme rainfall during summer monsoon season causes severe floods in many parts of India, annually. The floods in Kerala in 2019; Chennai during 2015 and Uttarakhand in 2013 are some of the major floods in recent years. With high population density and weaker infrastructure, even moderate precipitation extremes result in substantial loss to life and property. Thus, understanding and modeling the return levels of extreme precipitation in space and time is crucial for disaster mitigation efforts. To this end, we develop a Bayesian hierarchical model to capture the space-time variability of –summer season 3-day maximum precipitation over India. In this framework, the data layer, the precipitation extreme – i.e., seasonal maximum precipitation, at each station in each year is modeled using a generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution with temporally varying parameters, which are decomposed as linear functions of covariates. The coefficients of the covariates, in the process layer, are spatially modeled with a Gaussian multivariate process which enables capturing the spatial structure of the rainfall extremes and covariates. Suitable priors are used for the spatial model hyperparameters to complete the Bayesian formulation. With the posterior distribution of spatial fields of the GEV parameters for each year, posterior distribution of the nonstationary space–time return levels of the precipitation extremes are obtained. Climate diagnostics will be performed on the 3-day maximum precipitation field to obtain robust covariates. The model is demonstrated by application to extreme summer precipitation at 357 stations from this region. Preliminary model validation indicates that our model captures historical variability at the stations very well. Maps of return levels provide spatial and temporal variability of the risk of extreme precipitation over India that will be of great help in management and mitigation of hazards on natural resources and infrastructure.