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Climatology

Climatology is a baseline forecast that predicts the historical base rate for every event. It is a standard benchmark for Brier skill score.

Definition

Climatology is a forecasting baseline that always predicts the same probability: the historical base rate for the event type or dataset.

Example

If events in your set resolve YES 30% of the time, climatology predicts p0 = 0.30 for every event.

Why it matters

Climatology is a strong baseline because it captures the dominant frequency. It is often used as the baseline in Brier skill score and can be much harder to beat than 50/50 when outcomes are imbalanced.

Related

Climatology is a special case of a benchmark based on base rate.