Assessing the impact of hard data patterns on Bayesian Maximum Entropy: a simulation study

This study empirically tested the robustness of Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) in predicting spatiotemporal data, with an emphasis on skewness, sample size, and spatial dependency level. Simulated data, both Gaussian and non-Gaussian, were generated using the unconditional sequential simulation method, with sample sizes ranging from 100 to 500 at the interval length of 50 and varying skewness (0, 1, 3, 6 and 9) and spatial dependency levels (weak, moderate, and strong). Findings revealed sample size variations and spatial dependence levels did not significantly influence BME prediction’s Mean Square Error (MSE) and bias. While skewness significantly impacted MSE (p-value < 0.001), bias remained unaffected. Moreover, skewness and spatial dependence interactions affected both MSE and bias. Despite this, BME proved robust to sample size and skewness, demonstrating a negligible MSE on the graphical plot (heatmap).