Key-isovalue selection and hierarchical exploration visualization of weather forecast ensembles

Abstract

Weather forecast ensembles are commonly used to assess the uncertainty and confidence of weather predictions. Conventional methods in meteorology often employ ensemble mean and standard deviation plots, as well as spaghetti plots, to visualize ensemble data. However, these methods suffer from significant information loss and visual clutter. In this paper, we propose a new approach for uncertainty visualization of weather forecast ensembles, including isovalue selection based on information loss and hierarchical visualization that integrates visual abstraction and detail preservation. Our approach uses non-uniform downsampling to select key-isovalues and provides an interactive visualization method based on hierarchical clustering. Firstly, we sample key-isovalues by contour probability similarity and determine the optimal sampling number using an information loss curve. Then, the corresponding isocontours are presented to guide users in selecting key-isovalues. Once the isovalue is chosen, we perform agglomerative hierarchical clustering on the isocontours based on signed distance fields and generate visual abstractions for each isocontour cluster to avoid visual clutter. We link a bubble tree to the visual abstractions to explore the details of isocontour clusters at different levels. We demonstrate the utility of our approach through two case studies with meteorological experts on real-world data. We further validate its effectiveness by quantitatively assessing information loss and visual clutter. Additionally, we confirm its usability through expert evaluation.