Cross-validation of bias-corrected climate simulations is misleading

Maraun, Douglas; Widmann, Martin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4867-2018

Articles | Volume 22, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4867-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4867-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 9

Research article

|

18 Sep 2018

Research article |

| 18 Sep 2018

Cross-validation of bias-corrected climate simulations is misleading

Douglas Maraun and Martin Widmann

Download

Final revised paper (published on 18 Sep 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Apr 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee comment for Maraun and Widmann 2018', Seth McGinnis, 09 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'Response to Comment by Reviewer 1', Douglas Maraun, 11 Jul 2018
RC2: 'Review', Uwe Ehret, 10 Jun 2018
- RC3: 'Section 4', Seth McGinnis, 11 Jun 2018
  - RC4: 'Section 4', Uwe Ehret, 12 Jun 2018
    - AC2: 'Response to Comment by Reviewer 2', Douglas Maraun, 11 Jul 2018
  - AC2: 'Response to Comment by Reviewer 2', Douglas Maraun, 11 Jul 2018
- AC2: 'Response to Comment by Reviewer 2', Douglas Maraun, 11 Jul 2018
SC1: 'Short comment on: “Cross-validation of bias-corrected climate simulations is misleading”', Manolis Grillakis, 11 Jun 2018
- AC3: 'Response to Comment by M.G. Grillakis', Douglas Maraun, 11 Jul 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (12 Jul 2018) by Carlo De Michele

AR by Douglas Maraun on behalf of the Authors (28 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Aug 2018) by Carlo De Michele

RR by Seth McGinnis (08 Aug 2018)

RR by Uwe Ehret (12 Aug 2018)

ED: Publish as is (27 Aug 2018) by Carlo De Michele

AR by Douglas Maraun on behalf of the Authors (05 Sep 2018)

Short summary

Cross-validation of free-running bias-corrected climate change simulations against observations is misleading, because it is typically dominated by internal variability. In particular, a sensible bias correction may be rejected and a non-sensible bias correction may be accepted. We therefore propose to avoid cross-validation when evaluating bias correction of free-running bias-corrected climate change simulations. Instead, one should evaluate temporal, spatial and process-based aspects.