Hobart

Seminar Abstract

Friday 12 September 2008, 11.30am (Tas time)
CSIRO Auditorium, Hobart

John Parslow
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

Biogeochemical models in a Bayesian hierarchical framework

Modellers and model users attach increasing importance to quantitative analyses of error in marine biogeochemical models. Responses have included analyses of alternative metrics for “goodness of fit”, data assimilation into operational models, and parameter estimation. However, the treatment of error in many of these approaches is arguably selective or ad hoc. A Bayesian Hierarchical Framework permits the development of a consistent “end-to-end” probabilistic analysis of error and uncertainty in models and model predictions, dealing explicitly with uncertainty in prior parameter estimates, in model processes, and in observations. Bayesian inference techniques can then be used to derive posterior distributions for model parameters and derived properties (e.g. predictions of system state), given a set of observations.

The seminar will provide a progress report on our early attempts to reformulate simple deterministic biogeochemical models as stochastic models in a Bayesian Hierarchical Framework. The initial results provide new perspectives on model formulation, on the predictability of biogeochemical pools and fluxes, and on the use of experimental laboratory results in models of field communities. Prospects and options for implementing Bayesian inference, and for extending these approaches to spatially-resolved, coupled physical-biogeochemical models, will be discussed.

Seminar Recording

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Location:
CSIRO = Marine Laboratories Auditorium, Castray Esplanade, Hobart

For further information, or to schedule a seminar, contact:
To schedule a seminar, contact:
Bernadette Sloyan, (Oceanographic seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5152
Thomas Kunz, (Biological seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
(03) 6232 5076
Natalie Dowling, (Fisheries Modelling) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
(03) 6232 5148
Jillian Enraght-Moony, (seminar administrator) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5320
Communications Manager, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC (03) 6226 2265
Margaret Hazelwood, Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies (IASOS) University of Tasmania (03) 6226 2971

Last updated 21/07/09