Quantile_Gradient_Boosting_Probabilistic_Ionosphere_Evaluation

This release demonstrates how to load and evaluate the probabilistic Quantile Gradient Boosting (QGB) Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) models, which provide 95% confidence intervals. QGB VTEC models forecast VTEC 1-day ahead for grid points at 10° of longitude, and 10°, 40°, and 70° of latitude. They were developed within the study "Uncertainty Quantification for Machine Learning-based Ionosphere and Space Weather Forecasting" by Natras R., Soja B. and Schmidt M., submitted to the Space Weather Jornal, AGU.

Quantiles were estimated by multiplying the quantile values β by the positive and negative residuals in the loss function to obtain the quantile loss (QL) (see Equation 7 in the paper). Quantile values of β ={0.025, 0.975} are chosen for estimating the lower and upper confidence bounds, respectively, to obtain a confidence interval of 95%. The mean quantile β={0.50} provides the median VTEC.