Environmental Data Analysis with MatLab, 2nd Edition

5

Quantifying preconceptions

Abstract

Chapter 5, Quantifying Preconceptions, argues that we usually know things about the systems we are studying that can be used to supplement actual observations. Temperatures often lie in specific ranges governed by freezing and boiling points. Chemical gradients often vary smoothly in space, owing to the process of diffusion. Energy and momentum obey conservation laws. The methodology through which this prior information can be incorporated into the models is developed in this chapter. Called generalized least squares, it is applied to several substantial examples in which prior information is used to fill in data gaps in datasets.

Keywords

prior information; prior covariance; generalized least squares; ...