MIT researchers developed a new approach for assessing predictions with a spatial dimension, like forecasting weather or mapping air pollution.
MIT researchers developed a new approach for assessing predictions with a spatial dimension, like forecasting weather or mapping air pollution.
Should you grab your umbrella before you walk out the door? Checking the weather forecast beforehand will only be helpful if that forecast is accurate.
Spatial prediction problems, like weather forecasting or air pollution estimation, involve predicting the value of a variable in a new location based on known values at other locations. Scientists typically use tried-and-true validation methods to determine how much to trust these predictions.
But MIT researchers have shown that these popular validation methods can fail quite badly for spatial prediction tasks. This might lead someone to believe that a forecast is accurate or that a new prediction method is effective, when in reality that is not the case.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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