Causally-informed deep learning to improve climate models and projections

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Iglesias-Suarez, Fernando, Gentine, Pierre, Solino-Fernandez, Breixo, Beucler, Tom, Pritchard, Michael, Runge, Jakob, Eyring, Veronika
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2023
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author Iglesias-Suarez, Fernando
Gentine, Pierre
Solino-Fernandez, Breixo
Beucler, Tom
Pritchard, Michael
Runge, Jakob
Eyring, Veronika
author_facet Iglesias-Suarez, Fernando
Gentine, Pierre
Solino-Fernandez, Breixo
Beucler, Tom
Pritchard, Michael
Runge, Jakob
Eyring, Veronika
contents Climate models are essential to understand and project climate change, yet long-standing biases and uncertainties in their projections remain. This is largely associated with the representation of subgrid-scale processes, particularly clouds and convection. Deep learning can learn these subgrid-scale processes from computationally expensive storm-resolving models while retaining many features at a fraction of computational cost. Yet, climate simulations with embedded neural network parameterizations are still challenging and highly depend on the deep learning solution. This is likely associated with spurious non-physical correlations learned by the neural networks due to the complexity of the physical dynamical system. Here, we show that the combination of causality with deep learning helps removing spurious correlations and optimizing the neural network algorithm. To resolve this, we apply a causal discovery method to unveil causal drivers in the set of input predictors of atmospheric subgrid-scale processes of a superparameterized climate model in which deep convection is explicitly resolved. The resulting causally-informed neural networks are coupled to the climate model, hence, replacing the superparameterization and radiation scheme. We show that the climate simulations with causally-informed neural network parameterizations retain many convection-related properties and accurately generate the climate of the original high-resolution climate model, while retaining similar generalization capabilities to unseen climates compared to the non-causal approach. The combination of causal discovery and deep learning is a new and promising approach that leads to stable and more trustworthy climate simulations and paves the way towards more physically-based causal deep learning approaches also in other scientific disciplines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_12952
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Causally-informed deep learning to improve climate models and projections
Iglesias-Suarez, Fernando
Gentine, Pierre
Solino-Fernandez, Breixo
Beucler, Tom
Pritchard, Michael
Runge, Jakob
Eyring, Veronika
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Climate models are essential to understand and project climate change, yet long-standing biases and uncertainties in their projections remain. This is largely associated with the representation of subgrid-scale processes, particularly clouds and convection. Deep learning can learn these subgrid-scale processes from computationally expensive storm-resolving models while retaining many features at a fraction of computational cost. Yet, climate simulations with embedded neural network parameterizations are still challenging and highly depend on the deep learning solution. This is likely associated with spurious non-physical correlations learned by the neural networks due to the complexity of the physical dynamical system. Here, we show that the combination of causality with deep learning helps removing spurious correlations and optimizing the neural network algorithm. To resolve this, we apply a causal discovery method to unveil causal drivers in the set of input predictors of atmospheric subgrid-scale processes of a superparameterized climate model in which deep convection is explicitly resolved. The resulting causally-informed neural networks are coupled to the climate model, hence, replacing the superparameterization and radiation scheme. We show that the climate simulations with causally-informed neural network parameterizations retain many convection-related properties and accurately generate the climate of the original high-resolution climate model, while retaining similar generalization capabilities to unseen climates compared to the non-causal approach. The combination of causal discovery and deep learning is a new and promising approach that leads to stable and more trustworthy climate simulations and paves the way towards more physically-based causal deep learning approaches also in other scientific disciplines.
title Causally-informed deep learning to improve climate models and projections
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12952