Imposing the Fundamental Dynamical Constraint of Hydrostatic Balance to Improve Global ML Weather Prediction

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Subramaniam, Akshay, Durran, Dale, Pruitt, David, Cresswell-Clay, Nathaniel, Yik, William
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Subramaniam, Akshay
Durran, Dale
Pruitt, David
Cresswell-Clay, Nathaniel
Yik, William
author_facet Subramaniam, Akshay
Durran, Dale
Pruitt, David
Cresswell-Clay, Nathaniel
Yik, William
contents Forecasting weather accurately and efficiently is a critical capability in our ability to adapt to climate change. Data driven approaches to this problem have enjoyed much success recently providing forecasts with accuracy comparable to physics based numerical prediction models but at significantly reduced computational expense. However, these models typically do not incorporate any physics priors. In this work, we demonstrate improved skill of data driven weather prediction approaches by incorporating physical constraints, specifically in the context of the DLWP model (Karlbauer et. al. 2024). Near hydrostatic balance, between the vertical pressure gradient and gravity, is one of the most fundamental and well satisfied constraints on atmospheric motions. We impose this balance through both hard and soft constraints, and demonstrate that the soft constraint improves the RMSE of many forecast fields, particularly at lead times beyond 7-10 days. The positive influence of hydrostatic balance is also clearly evident in improving the physicality and strength of a 10-day forecast for hurricane Irma. These results show that adding appropriate physical constraints can improve the skill and fidelity of data driven weather models in a way that does not impose any significant additional memory capacity or scalability challenges.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_08285
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Imposing the Fundamental Dynamical Constraint of Hydrostatic Balance to Improve Global ML Weather Prediction
Subramaniam, Akshay
Durran, Dale
Pruitt, David
Cresswell-Clay, Nathaniel
Yik, William
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Forecasting weather accurately and efficiently is a critical capability in our ability to adapt to climate change. Data driven approaches to this problem have enjoyed much success recently providing forecasts with accuracy comparable to physics based numerical prediction models but at significantly reduced computational expense. However, these models typically do not incorporate any physics priors. In this work, we demonstrate improved skill of data driven weather prediction approaches by incorporating physical constraints, specifically in the context of the DLWP model (Karlbauer et. al. 2024). Near hydrostatic balance, between the vertical pressure gradient and gravity, is one of the most fundamental and well satisfied constraints on atmospheric motions. We impose this balance through both hard and soft constraints, and demonstrate that the soft constraint improves the RMSE of many forecast fields, particularly at lead times beyond 7-10 days. The positive influence of hydrostatic balance is also clearly evident in improving the physicality and strength of a 10-day forecast for hurricane Irma. These results show that adding appropriate physical constraints can improve the skill and fidelity of data driven weather models in a way that does not impose any significant additional memory capacity or scalability challenges.
title Imposing the Fundamental Dynamical Constraint of Hydrostatic Balance to Improve Global ML Weather Prediction
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08285