CSEP2 Storing Stochastic Event Sets

Introduction

This page reflects the work on dealing with stochastic event sets within CSEP2.

In order to maintain inter-operability between models and the international testing centers we must adopt a standard format for stochastic event sets that contains the necessary and sufficient information needed to perform CSEP evaluations of the forecasts.

The most straightforward approach would be to continue with a catalog format supported by CSEP1. The likely candidate for CSEP2 catalog format would be the so-called ZMAP format which has the following format:

1. Longitude [deg]
2. Latitude [deg]
3. Decimal year (e.g., 2005.5 for July 1st, 2005)
4. Month
5. Day
6. Magnitude
7. Depth [km]
8. Hour
9. Minute
10. Second

File Formats

The fields represented can be represented on the computer using a number of different file formats. However, we will focus on a binary representation that aims to reduce the total file size.