| description abstract | Over an area spanning the North American Continent from tropical to polar latitudes, and between 40W and 135W, four consecutive days of the NIMBUS II Medium Resolution Infrared (MRIR) five-channel equivalent blackbody temperatures and of 1000-mb geopotential fields were used to specify the 500-mb field of geopotential. Three of the four days were reserved for dependent data, the fourth day being reserved for independent test-case data. The data samples were stratified into ?extratropical? and subtropical-tropical areas, and then pooled three-day stepwise, with screening regression equations being developed by areas. In the lower latitude stratifications, the 500-mb regression equations were only of marginal significance, but in the extratropical zone (latitudes 32?64N), the regressions have 500-mb height specifications with multiple correlation coefficients of 0.95. Moreover, in the independent-data test case, no shrinkage of explained variances occurred in these extratropical latitudes. Here the most important predictors for Z5(I, J) were the equivalent blackbody temperatures (TBB) in the 14?16 ? and 10?11 ? channels, the 1000-mb geopotential, and finally an effective TBB associated with the solar-reflectance channel. | |
