Stochastic Simulation Model for non-stationary time series using Wavelet AutoRegressive Model

Many hydroclimatic time series are marked by interannual and longer quasi-period features that are associated with narrow band oscillatory climate modes. A time series modeling approach that directly considers such structures is developed and presented. The essence of the approach is to first develop a wavelet decomposition of the time series that retains only the statistically significant wavelet components, and to then model each such component and the residual time series as univariate autoregressive processes. The efficacy of this approach is demonstrated through the simulation of observed and paleo reconstructions of climate indices related to ENSO and AMO, tree ring and rainfall time series. Long ensemble simulations that preserve the spectral attributes of the time series in each ensemble member can be generated. The usual low order statistics are preserved by the proposed model, and its long memory performance is superior to the direction application of an autoregressive model.