ESS210B
Prof. Jin-Yi Yu
Sampling Theory
qSampling: we need a large amount of data on a
specific geophysical variable in order to analyze the behavior (e.g., probability
distribution) of that variable.
qIn the real word, we can not (or don’t want to) make unlimited amounts of samplings (observations)
to find out the “true” properties of a variable.
qTherefore, we want to know “How few data can
we use and still arrive at the correct conclusions?”
è The Sampling
Theory.
sampling
Population
Random Samples
(Figure from Panofsky and Brier 1968)