Organizations: Optimization and Uncertainty Quantification Department, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM · School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK and Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO · Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO · Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO · Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO
Computational models support high-stakes decisions across engineering and science, and practitioners increasingly seek probabilistic predictions to quantify uncertainty in such models. Existing approaches generate predictions either by sampling input parameter distributions or by augmenting deterministic outputs with uncertainty representations, including distribution-free and distributional methods. However, sampling-based methods are often computationally prohibitive for real-time applications, and many existing uncertainty representations either ignore input dependence or rely on restrictive Gaussian assumptions that fail to capture asymmetry and heavy-tailed behavior. Therefore, we extend the ACCurate and Reliable Uncertainty Estimate (ACCRUE) framework to learn input-dependent, non-Gaussian uncertainty distributions, specifically two-piece Gaussian and asymmetric Laplace forms, using a neural network trained with a loss function that balances predictive accuracy and reliability. Through synthetic and real-world experiments, we show that the proposed approach captures an input-dependent uncertainty structure and improves probabilistic forecasts relative to existing methods, while maintaining flexibility to model skewed and non-Gaussian errors.
Figures & tables
Scenario
A
B
C
D
E
F
Distribution
TPG
TPG
TPG
AL
AL
AL
Parameter Functions
Linear
Trig
Combo
Linear
Trig
Combo
Table 1: Synthetic data calibration scenarios
Figure 1: Numerical results for scenario A: TPG with linear parameters
Figure 2: Numerical results for scenario B: TPG with trig parameters
Figure 3: Numerical results for scenario C: TPG with combo parameters
Figure 4: Numerical results for scenario D: AL with linear parameters
Figure 5: Numerical results for scenario E: AL with trig parameters
Figure 6: Numerical results for scenario F: AL with combo parameters
Figure 7: Numerical results for the misspecified distribution, where the true measurement error is gamma distributed. Predicted errors are (a) two-piece Gaussian distributed or (b) asymmetric Laplace distributed.
Predicted Distribution
TPG
AL
Testing Loss
0.219
0.215
Table 2: Predicted losses for the misspecified gamma distributed errors
Method
HRRR
CP
EasyUQ
TPG
AL
Loss Function
MAE
CRPS
CRPS
CRPS /RS/ACCRUE
CRPS /RS/ACCRUE
1-hour Ahead Testing Loss
1.1536
0.8329
0.8305
0.8324/0.6692/0.7998
0.8312/0.6679/0.7495
Table 3: Predicted losses for temperature forecasts in degrees Celsius.
Figure 8: Uncertainty estimates for HRRR one-hour ahead temperature forecasts for testing data extrapolating in time.
Figure 9: Minimum, median, and maximum testing observations (blue crosses) compared to HRRR One-hour ahead temperature forecasts (black circles), and four uncertainty representations added to the forecasts: conformal prediction (CP), EasyUQ, and ACCRUE with two-piece Gaussian (TPG) and asymmetric Laplace (AL) distributions. Uncertainty representations are shown with 95% and 50% CIs (light and dark shaded regions) and the median (black dash).
School of Statistics and Data Science, Nankai University, Tianjin, China · Kuang-Chi Institute of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, China · Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China +1