Leveraging an Atmospheric Foundational Model for Subregional Sea Surface Temperature Forecasting

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Main Authors: Medina, Víctor, Cuervo-Londoño, Giovanny A., Sánchez, Javier
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Medina, Víctor
Cuervo-Londoño, Giovanny A.
Sánchez, Javier
author_facet Medina, Víctor
Cuervo-Londoño, Giovanny A.
Sánchez, Javier
contents The accurate prediction of oceanographic variables is crucial for understanding climate change, managing marine resources, and optimizing maritime activities. Traditional ocean forecasting relies on numerical models; however, these approaches face limitations in terms of computational cost and scalability. In this study, we adapt Aurora, a foundational deep learning model originally designed for atmospheric forecasting, to predict sea surface temperature (SST) in the Canary Upwelling System. By fine-tuning this model with high-resolution oceanographic reanalysis data, we demonstrate its ability to capture complex spatiotemporal patterns while reducing computational demands. Our methodology involves a staged fine-tuning process, incorporating latitude-weighted error metrics and optimizing hyperparameters for efficient learning. The experimental results show that the model achieves a low RMSE of 0.119K, maintaining high anomaly correlation coefficients (ACC $\approx 0.997$). The model successfully reproduces large-scale SST structures but faces challenges in capturing finer details in coastal regions. This work contributes to the field of data-driven ocean forecasting by demonstrating the feasibility of using deep learning models pre-trained in different domains for oceanic applications. Future improvements include integrating additional oceanographic variables, increasing spatial resolution, and exploring physics-informed neural networks to enhance interpretability and understanding. These advancements can improve climate modeling and ocean prediction accuracy, supporting decision-making in environmental and economic sectors.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_25563
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Leveraging an Atmospheric Foundational Model for Subregional Sea Surface Temperature Forecasting
Medina, Víctor
Cuervo-Londoño, Giovanny A.
Sánchez, Javier
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
The accurate prediction of oceanographic variables is crucial for understanding climate change, managing marine resources, and optimizing maritime activities. Traditional ocean forecasting relies on numerical models; however, these approaches face limitations in terms of computational cost and scalability. In this study, we adapt Aurora, a foundational deep learning model originally designed for atmospheric forecasting, to predict sea surface temperature (SST) in the Canary Upwelling System. By fine-tuning this model with high-resolution oceanographic reanalysis data, we demonstrate its ability to capture complex spatiotemporal patterns while reducing computational demands. Our methodology involves a staged fine-tuning process, incorporating latitude-weighted error metrics and optimizing hyperparameters for efficient learning. The experimental results show that the model achieves a low RMSE of 0.119K, maintaining high anomaly correlation coefficients (ACC $\approx 0.997$). The model successfully reproduces large-scale SST structures but faces challenges in capturing finer details in coastal regions. This work contributes to the field of data-driven ocean forecasting by demonstrating the feasibility of using deep learning models pre-trained in different domains for oceanic applications. Future improvements include integrating additional oceanographic variables, increasing spatial resolution, and exploring physics-informed neural networks to enhance interpretability and understanding. These advancements can improve climate modeling and ocean prediction accuracy, supporting decision-making in environmental and economic sectors.
title Leveraging an Atmospheric Foundational Model for Subregional Sea Surface Temperature Forecasting
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25563