Building Machine Learning Limited Area Models: Kilometer-Scale Weather Forecasting in Realistic Settings

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Adamov, Simon, Oskarsson, Joel, Denby, Leif, Landelius, Tomas, Hintz, Kasper, Christiansen, Simon, Schicker, Irene, Osuna, Carlos, Lindsten, Fredrik, Fuhrer, Oliver, Schemm, Sebastian
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Adamov, Simon
Oskarsson, Joel
Denby, Leif
Landelius, Tomas
Hintz, Kasper
Christiansen, Simon
Schicker, Irene
Osuna, Carlos
Lindsten, Fredrik
Fuhrer, Oliver
Schemm, Sebastian
author_facet Adamov, Simon
Oskarsson, Joel
Denby, Leif
Landelius, Tomas
Hintz, Kasper
Christiansen, Simon
Schicker, Irene
Osuna, Carlos
Lindsten, Fredrik
Fuhrer, Oliver
Schemm, Sebastian
contents Machine learning is revolutionizing global weather forecasting, with models that efficiently produce highly accurate forecasts. Apart from global forecasting there is also a large value in high-resolution regional weather forecasts, focusing on accurate simulations of the atmosphere for a limited area. Initial attempts have been made to use machine learning for such limited area scenarios, but these experiments do not consider realistic forecasting settings and do not investigate the many design choices involved. We present a framework for building kilometer-scale machine learning limited area models with boundary conditions imposed through a flexible boundary forcing method. This enables boundary conditions defined either from reanalysis or operational forecast data. Our approach employs specialized graph constructions with rectangular and triangular meshes, along with multi-step rollout training strategies to improve temporal consistency. We perform systematic evaluation of different design choices, including the boundary width, graph construction and boundary forcing integration. Models are evaluated across both a Danish and a Swiss domain, two regions that exhibit different orographical characteristics. Verification is performed against both gridded analysis data and in-situ observations, including a case study for the storm Ciara in February 2020. Both models achieve skillful predictions across a wide range of variables, with our Swiss model outperforming the numerical weather prediction baseline for key surface variables. With their substantially lower computational cost, our findings demonstrate great potential for machine learning limited area models in the future of regional weather forecasting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_09340
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Building Machine Learning Limited Area Models: Kilometer-Scale Weather Forecasting in Realistic Settings
Adamov, Simon
Oskarsson, Joel
Denby, Leif
Landelius, Tomas
Hintz, Kasper
Christiansen, Simon
Schicker, Irene
Osuna, Carlos
Lindsten, Fredrik
Fuhrer, Oliver
Schemm, Sebastian
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Machine Learning
Machine learning is revolutionizing global weather forecasting, with models that efficiently produce highly accurate forecasts. Apart from global forecasting there is also a large value in high-resolution regional weather forecasts, focusing on accurate simulations of the atmosphere for a limited area. Initial attempts have been made to use machine learning for such limited area scenarios, but these experiments do not consider realistic forecasting settings and do not investigate the many design choices involved. We present a framework for building kilometer-scale machine learning limited area models with boundary conditions imposed through a flexible boundary forcing method. This enables boundary conditions defined either from reanalysis or operational forecast data. Our approach employs specialized graph constructions with rectangular and triangular meshes, along with multi-step rollout training strategies to improve temporal consistency. We perform systematic evaluation of different design choices, including the boundary width, graph construction and boundary forcing integration. Models are evaluated across both a Danish and a Swiss domain, two regions that exhibit different orographical characteristics. Verification is performed against both gridded analysis data and in-situ observations, including a case study for the storm Ciara in February 2020. Both models achieve skillful predictions across a wide range of variables, with our Swiss model outperforming the numerical weather prediction baseline for key surface variables. With their substantially lower computational cost, our findings demonstrate great potential for machine learning limited area models in the future of regional weather forecasting.
title Building Machine Learning Limited Area Models: Kilometer-Scale Weather Forecasting in Realistic Settings
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09340