Challenges of learning multi-scale dynamics with AI weather models: Implications for stability and one solution

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chattopadhyay, Ashesh, Sun, Y. Qiang, Hassanzadeh, Pedram
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866912147365167104
author Chattopadhyay, Ashesh
Sun, Y. Qiang
Hassanzadeh, Pedram
author_facet Chattopadhyay, Ashesh
Sun, Y. Qiang
Hassanzadeh, Pedram
contents Long-term stability and physical consistency are critical properties for AI-based weather models if they are going to be used for subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasts or beyond, e.g., climate change projection. However, current AI-based weather models can only provide short-term forecasts accurately since they become unstable or physically inconsistent when time-integrated beyond a few weeks or a few months. Either they exhibit numerical blow-up or hallucinate unrealistic dynamics of the atmospheric variables, akin to the current class of autoregressive large language models. The cause of the instabilities is unknown, and the methods that are used to improve their stability horizons are ad-hoc and lack rigorous theory. In this paper, we reveal that the universal causal mechanism for these instabilities in any turbulent flow is due to \textit{spectral bias} wherein, \textit{any} deep learning architecture is biased to learn only the large-scale dynamics and ignores the small scales completely. We further elucidate how turbulence physics and the absence of convergence in deep learning-based time-integrators amplify this bias, leading to unstable error propagation. Finally, using the quasi-geostrophic flow and European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Reanalysis data as test cases, we bridge the gap between deep learning theory and numerical analysis to propose one mitigative solution to such unphysical behavior. We develop long-term physically-consistent data-driven models for the climate system and demonstrate accurate short-term forecasts, and hundreds of years of time-integration with accurate mean and variability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_07029
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Challenges of learning multi-scale dynamics with AI weather models: Implications for stability and one solution
Chattopadhyay, Ashesh
Sun, Y. Qiang
Hassanzadeh, Pedram
Fluid Dynamics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Long-term stability and physical consistency are critical properties for AI-based weather models if they are going to be used for subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasts or beyond, e.g., climate change projection. However, current AI-based weather models can only provide short-term forecasts accurately since they become unstable or physically inconsistent when time-integrated beyond a few weeks or a few months. Either they exhibit numerical blow-up or hallucinate unrealistic dynamics of the atmospheric variables, akin to the current class of autoregressive large language models. The cause of the instabilities is unknown, and the methods that are used to improve their stability horizons are ad-hoc and lack rigorous theory. In this paper, we reveal that the universal causal mechanism for these instabilities in any turbulent flow is due to \textit{spectral bias} wherein, \textit{any} deep learning architecture is biased to learn only the large-scale dynamics and ignores the small scales completely. We further elucidate how turbulence physics and the absence of convergence in deep learning-based time-integrators amplify this bias, leading to unstable error propagation. Finally, using the quasi-geostrophic flow and European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Reanalysis data as test cases, we bridge the gap between deep learning theory and numerical analysis to propose one mitigative solution to such unphysical behavior. We develop long-term physically-consistent data-driven models for the climate system and demonstrate accurate short-term forecasts, and hundreds of years of time-integration with accurate mean and variability.
title Challenges of learning multi-scale dynamics with AI weather models: Implications for stability and one solution
topic Fluid Dynamics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07029