Modeling the contributions of global air temperature, synoptic-scale phenomena and soil moisture to near-surface static energy variability using artificial neural networks

The static energy content of the atmosphere is increasing on a global scale, but exhibits important subglobal and subregional scales of variability and is a useful parameter for integrating the net effect of changes in the partitioning of energy at the surface and for improving understanding of the causes of so-called "warming holes" (i.e., locations with decreasing daily maximum air temperatures (T) or increasing trends of lower magnitude than the global mean). Further, measures of the static energy content (herein the equivalent potential temperature, theta(e)) are more strongly linked to excess human mortality and morbidity than air temperature alone, and have great relevance in understanding causes of past heat-related excess mortality and making projections of possible future events that are likely to be associated with negative human health and economic consequences. New nonlinear statistical models for summertime daily maximum and minimum theta(e) are developed and used to advance understanding of drivers of historical change and variability over the eastern USA. The predictor variables are an index of the daily global mean temperature, daily indices of the synoptic-scale meteorology derived from T and specific humidity (Q) at 850 and 500 hPa geopotential heights (Z), and spatiotemporally averaged soil moisture (SM). SM is particularly important in determining the magnitude of theta(e) over regions that have previously been identified as exhibiting warming holes, confirming the key importance of SM in dictating the partitioning of net radiation into sensible and latent heat and dictating trends in near-surface T and theta(e). Consistent with our a priori expectations, models built using artificial neural networks (ANNs) out-perform linear models that do not permit interaction of the predictor variables (global T, synoptic-scale meteorological conditions and SM). This is particularly marked in regions with high variability in minimum and maximum theta(e), where more complex models built using ANN with multiple hidden layers are better able to capture the day-to-day variability in theta(e) and the occurrence of extreme maximum theta(e). Over the entire domain, the ANN with three hidden layers exhibits high accuracy in predicting maximum theta(e) > 347 K. The median hit rate for maximum theta(e) > 347K is > 0 : 60, while the median false alarm rate is approximate to 0.08.