Emulation and calibration with smoothed system and simulator data

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with structuring the statistical model with which we relate physical systems and computer simulators. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that we relate them via imagined smoothed versions of themselves, reflecting the belief that they are similar on large scales but discrepant when in comes to small scale details. Our central, paradigmatic example involves relating the planet’s climate to a climate simulator. Here the simulator is suspected to be incapable of faithfully reproducing changes in the system as time or certain physical parameters are changed by a small amount, but is still considered informative for the changes in the system over long time scales and large parameter changes