Multifidelity Monte Carlo Estimation for Efficient Uncertainty Quantification in Climate-Related Modeling

Abstract. Uncertainties in an output of interest that depends on the solution of a complex system (e.g., of partial differential equations with random inputs) are often, if not nearly ubiquitously, determined in practice using Monte Carlo (MC) estimation. While simple to implement, MC estimation fails to provide reliable information about statistical quantities (such as the expected value of the output of interest) in application settings such as climate modeling for which obtaining a single realization of the output of interest is a costly endeavor. Specifically, the dilemma encountered is that many samples of the output of interest have to be collected in order to obtain an MC estimator having sufficient accuracy; so many, in fact, that the available computational budget is not large enough to effect the number of samples needed. To circumvent this dilemma, we consider using multifidelity Monte Carlo (MFMC) estimation which leverages the use of less costly and less accurate surrogate models (such as coarser grids, reduced-order models, simplified physics, interpolants, etc.) to achieve, for the same computational budget, higher accuracy compared to that obtained by an MC estimator or, looking at it another way, an MFMC estimator obtains the same accuracy as the MC estimator at lower computational cost. The key to the efficacy of MFMC estimation is the fact that most of the required computational budget is loaded onto the less costly surrogate models, so that very few samples are taken of the more expensive model of interest. We first provide a more detailed discussion about the need to consider an alternate to MC estimation for uncertainty quantification. Subsequently, we present a review, in an abstract setting, of the MFMC approach along with its application to three climate-related benchmark problems as a proof-of-concept exercise.