Editorial: EVA 2019 data competition on spatio-temporal prediction of Red Sea surface temperature extremes

Abstract

Large, non-stationary spatio-temporal data are ubiquitous in modern statistical applications, and the modeling of spatio-temporal extremes is crucial for assessing risks in environmental sciences among others. While the modeling of extremes is challenging in itself, the prediction of rare events at unobserved spatial locations and time points is even more difficult. In this Editorial, we describe the data competition that was organized for the 11th international conference on Extreme-Value Analysis (EVA 2019), for which several teams modeled and predicted Red Sea surface temperature extremes over space and time. After introducing the dataset and the goal of the competition, we disclose the final ranking of the teams, and we finally discuss some interesting outcomes and future challenges.