A Sandwich With Water: Bayesian/Frequentist Uncertainty Quantification
under Model Misspecification
Abstract
In this paper we review basic elements of Frequentist inference,
specifically maximum likelihood (ML) and M-estimation to point out a
critical flaw of Bayesian methods for hydrologic model training and
uncertainty quantification. Under model misspecification, the
sensitivity
$\widehat{\mathbf{A}}_{n}$ and
variability
$\widehat{\mathbf{B}}_{n}$
matrices of the ML model parameter values
$\widehat{\bm{\uptheta}}_{n}$
provide conflicting information about the observed Fisher information
$\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{I}}}\vphantom{\overline{\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{I}}}}}_{n}$
of the data
$\omega_{1},\ldots,\omega_{n}$
for $\bm{\uptheta} =
(\theta_{1},\ldots,\theta_{d})^{\top}$.
As a result, the ML parameter covariance matrix,
$\Var(\widehat{\bm{\uptheta}}_{n})$,
does not simplify to the matrix inverse of the observed Fisher
information,
$\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{I}}}\vphantom{\overline{\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{I}}}}}_{n}$,
as suggested by naive ML estimators and Bayesian MCMC methods but
amounts instead to the so-called sandwich matrix
$\Var(\widehat{\bm{\uptheta}}_{n})
=
\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{G}}}\vphantom{\overline{\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{G}}}}}_{n}^{-1}
= \fracn
\widehat{\mathbf{A}}_{n}^{-1}\widehat{\mathbf{B}}^{\vphantom{-1}}_{n}\widehat{\mathbf{A}}_{n}^{-1}$,
where the observed Godambe information
$\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{G}}}\vphantom{\overline{\widehat{\boldsymbol{\mathcal{G}}}}}_{n}$
is the fundamental currency of data informativeness under model
misspecification. The \textit{sandwich} matrix is a
metaphor for a \textit{meat} matrix
$\widehat{\mathbf{B}}_{n}$
between two \textit{bread} matrices
$\widehat{\mathbf{A}}_{n}$ and
yields asymptotically valid “robust standard errors” even when the
likelihood function
$L_{n}(\bm{\uptheta})$ (model) is
incorrectly specified. The implications of the sandwich variance
estimator are demonstrated in three case studies involving the modeling
of soil water infiltration, watershed hydrologic fluxes and the
rainfall-discharge transformation. First and foremost, our analytic and
numerical results demonstrate that the sandwich variance estimator
increases substantially hydrologic model parameter and predictive
uncertainty. The sandwich estimator is invariant to likelihood
stretching practiced by the GLUE method as a remedy for
over-conditioning and requires magnitude and/or curvature adjustments to
the likelihood function to yield asymptotically valid sandwich parameter
estimates and inference via MCMC simulation.