Probabilistic Emulation of the Community Radiative Transfer Model Using Machine Learning
This work addresses the problem of inefficient radiative transfer models in weather forecasting, enabling more satellite data assimilation, but it is incremental as it applies existing machine learning methods to a known bottleneck.
The researchers tackled the computational bottleneck in satellite data assimilation by developing a neural network-based probabilistic emulator for the Community Radiative Transfer Model, achieving an RMSE of 0.3 K for predicted brightness temperatures and less than 0.1 K for 9 out of 10 infrared channels under clear sky conditions.
The continuous improvement in weather forecast skill over the past several decades is largely due to the increasing quantity of available satellite observations and their assimilation into operational forecast systems. Assimilating these observations requires observation operators in the form of radiative transfer models. Significant efforts have been dedicated to enhancing the computational efficiency of these models. Computational cost remains a bottleneck, and a large fraction of available data goes unused for assimilation. To address this, we used machine learning to build an efficient neural network based probabilistic emulator of the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM), applied to the GOES Advanced Baseline Imager. The trained NN emulator predicts brightness temperatures output by CRTM and the corresponding error with respect to CRTM. RMSE of the predicted brightness temperature is 0.3 K averaged across all channels. For clear sky conditions, the RMSE is less than 0.1 K for 9 out of 10 infrared channels. The error predictions are generally reliable across a wide range of conditions. Explainable AI methods demonstrate that the trained emulator reproduces the relevant physics, increasing confidence that the model will perform well when presented with new data.