Applications of Fuzzy Clustering Techniques to Stratified by Tropopause MSU Temperature Retrievals

The fuzzy partitioned clustering method was applied to predict tropopause height only using microwave information with an eye towards using it on real data under cloudy conditions. In the second stage stratified by tropopause regression temperature retrievals included using only the three or four microwave channels for each 40 mb range. The first step in the experiment is the fuzzy partitioned clustering of the microwave brightness temperatures. This method is a combination of standard hard clustering and discriminant analysis. The fuzzy partitioned clustering uses all the generated probabilities of membership of each pattern vector in any of the given clusters. These probabilities are generated by discriminant analysis to locate the correct cluster. The ultimate goal of standard discriminant analysis is to provide the unique (correct) cluster to which the pattern vector belongs. It was only the maximum of all the generated probabilities. The method uses all the probabilities and weight the regressions generated within each cluster. These regression formulas predict the tropopause height from the microwave brightness temperatures. In the second step the microwave regression temperature retrievals are stratified by tropopause height every 40 mb. The control experiment is defined, the data are stratified by land/ocean, summer/winter, and latitude bands.