How does an AI Weather Model Learn to Forecast Extreme Weather?

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Baiman, Rebecca, Barnes, Elizabeth A., Mahesh, Ankur
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Baiman, Rebecca
Barnes, Elizabeth A.
Mahesh, Ankur
author_facet Baiman, Rebecca
Barnes, Elizabeth A.
Mahesh, Ankur
contents In a warming climate with more frequent severe weather, artificial intelligence (AI) weather models have the potential to provide cheaper, faster, and more accurate forecasts of high-impact weather events. To realize this potential, there is a need for more research on how models learn extreme events and how that learning might be improved. We investigate how a spherical Fourier neural operator model (SFNO) learns extreme weather by saving every checkpoint throughout training and analyzing a collection of 9 extreme weather events including heatwaves, atmospheric rivers, and tropical cyclones. The SFNO learns heatwaves similarly to other weather days, but we find evidence that the model learns information about atmospheric river and tropical cyclone forecasts that it loses later in training. We propose a possible training strategy to improve the forecasting of extreme events by retaining information from earlier training checkpoints, and provide initial evidence of its utility.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_10639
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How does an AI Weather Model Learn to Forecast Extreme Weather?
Baiman, Rebecca
Barnes, Elizabeth A.
Mahesh, Ankur
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
In a warming climate with more frequent severe weather, artificial intelligence (AI) weather models have the potential to provide cheaper, faster, and more accurate forecasts of high-impact weather events. To realize this potential, there is a need for more research on how models learn extreme events and how that learning might be improved. We investigate how a spherical Fourier neural operator model (SFNO) learns extreme weather by saving every checkpoint throughout training and analyzing a collection of 9 extreme weather events including heatwaves, atmospheric rivers, and tropical cyclones. The SFNO learns heatwaves similarly to other weather days, but we find evidence that the model learns information about atmospheric river and tropical cyclone forecasts that it loses later in training. We propose a possible training strategy to improve the forecasting of extreme events by retaining information from earlier training checkpoints, and provide initial evidence of its utility.
title How does an AI Weather Model Learn to Forecast Extreme Weather?
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10639