Improving Seasonal Forecast of Summer Precipitation in Southeastern
China using CycleGAN Deep Learning Bias Correction
Abstract
Accurate seasonal precipitation forecasts, especially for extreme
events, are crucial to preventing meteorological hazards and its
potential impacts on national development, social stability, and
security. However, the intensity of summer precipitation is often
significantly underestimated in many current dynamical models. This
study uses a deep learning method called Cycle-Consistent Generative
Adversarial Networks (CycleGAN) to enhance the seasonal forecast skill
of the Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology Climate
Forecast System (NUIST-CFS1.0) in predicting June-July-August
precipitation in southeastern China. The results suggest that the
CycleGAN-based model significantly improves the accuracy in predicting
the spatial-temporal distribution of summer precipitation than
traditional quantile mapping (QM) method. Due to the use of unpaired
day-to-day correction models, we can pay more attention to the
frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme precipitation events in
the climate dynamical model forecast. This study expands the potential
applications of deep learning models to improving seasonal precipitation
forecasts.