Could Machine Learning Break the Convection Parameterization Deadlock?
Abstract
Representing unresolved moist convection in coarse-scale climate models remains one of the main bottlenecks of current climate simulations. Many of the biases present with parameterized convection are strongly reduced when convection is explicitly resolved (i.e., in cloud resolving models at high spatial resolution approximately a kilometer or so). We here present a novel approach to convective parameterization based on machine learning, using an aquaplanet with prescribed sea surface temperatures as a proof of concept. A deep neural network is trained with a superparameterized version of a climate model in which convection is resolved by thousands of embedded 2-D cloud resolving models. The machine learning representation of convection, which we call the Cloud Brain (CBRAIN), can skillfully predict many of the convective heating, moistening, and radiative features of superparameterization that are most important to climate simulation, although an unintended side effect is to reduce some of the superparameterization’s inherent variance. Since as few as three months’ high-frequency global training data prove sufficient to provide this skill, the approach presented here opens up a new possibility for a future class of convection parameterizations in climate models that are built “top-down,” that is, by learning salient features of convection from unusually explicit simulations.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[2]
- Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York NY USA
- Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine CA USA
- Faculty of Physics, LMU Munich, Munich Germany
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1452657
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1452658; OSTI ID: 1510994
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012548; SC0012152
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Volume: 45 Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
Citation Formats
Gentine, P., Pritchard, M., Rasp, S., Reinaudi, G., and Yacalis, G. Could Machine Learning Break the Convection Parameterization Deadlock?. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1029/2018GL078202.
Gentine, P., Pritchard, M., Rasp, S., Reinaudi, G., & Yacalis, G. Could Machine Learning Break the Convection Parameterization Deadlock?. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078202
Gentine, P., Pritchard, M., Rasp, S., Reinaudi, G., and Yacalis, G. Tue .
"Could Machine Learning Break the Convection Parameterization Deadlock?". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078202.
@article{osti_1452657,
title = {Could Machine Learning Break the Convection Parameterization Deadlock?},
author = {Gentine, P. and Pritchard, M. and Rasp, S. and Reinaudi, G. and Yacalis, G.},
abstractNote = {Representing unresolved moist convection in coarse-scale climate models remains one of the main bottlenecks of current climate simulations. Many of the biases present with parameterized convection are strongly reduced when convection is explicitly resolved (i.e., in cloud resolving models at high spatial resolution approximately a kilometer or so). We here present a novel approach to convective parameterization based on machine learning, using an aquaplanet with prescribed sea surface temperatures as a proof of concept. A deep neural network is trained with a superparameterized version of a climate model in which convection is resolved by thousands of embedded 2-D cloud resolving models. The machine learning representation of convection, which we call the Cloud Brain (CBRAIN), can skillfully predict many of the convective heating, moistening, and radiative features of superparameterization that are most important to climate simulation, although an unintended side effect is to reduce some of the superparameterization’s inherent variance. Since as few as three months’ high-frequency global training data prove sufficient to provide this skill, the approach presented here opens up a new possibility for a future class of convection parameterizations in climate models that are built “top-down,” that is, by learning salient features of convection from unusually explicit simulations.},
doi = {10.1029/2018GL078202},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 11,
volume = 45,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jun 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Tue Jun 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Cited by: 197 works
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Figures / Tables:
Figure 1: Latitude-longitude snapshot of neural network predictions and the corresponding SP-CAM truth at model level 20 (roughly 700 hPa) for one time step in the validation set.
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