Pg. Jones et Pk. Thornton, SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF RAINFALL RELATED TO A 3RD-ORDER MARKOV MODEL, Agricultural and forest meteorology, 86(1-2), 1997, pp. 127-138
Many types of analysis require rainfall data, which must often be gene
rated to overcome limitations in the historical record. The ability to
model outlying rainfall years satisfactorily is particularly importan
t in risk studies. We describe a rainfall generator with this ability,
based on a third-order Markov process, and we show how the fitted par
ameters of the model vary for an illustrative sample of 18 sites with
highly contrasting climates. Some of the parameters of the model show
patterns that are characteristic of the climate type. The model should
thus be suitable for interpolating rainfall data where they do not ex
ist. We also fitted the model to subsets of some long data records to
illustrate the marked changes in rainfall characteristics that have oc
curred in some locations over the last 70 years, and to help understan
d the nature of these changes. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.