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Sampling Hybrid Climate Simulation at Scale to Reliably Improve Machine Learning Parameterization
  • +6
  • Jerry Lin,
  • Sungduk Yu,
  • Liran Peng,
  • Tom Beucler,
  • Eliot Wong-Toi,
  • Zeyuan Hu,
  • Pierre Gentine,
  • Margarita Geleta,
  • Michael S Pritchard
Jerry Lin
University of California, Irvine

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Sungduk Yu
University of California, Irvine
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Liran Peng
University of California, Irvine
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Tom Beucler
University of Lausanne
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Eliot Wong-Toi
University of California, Irvine
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Zeyuan Hu
Harvard University
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Pierre Gentine
Columbia University
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Margarita Geleta
University of California, Berkeley
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Michael S Pritchard
University of California, Irvine and NVIDIA
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Abstract

Machine-learning (ML) parameterizations of subgrid processes (here of turbulence, convection, and radiation) may one day replace conventional parameterizations by emulating high-resolution physics without the cost of explicit simulation. However, their development has been stymied by uncertainty surrounding whether or not improved offline performance translates to improved online performance (i.e., when coupled to a large-scale general circulation model (GCM)). A key barrier has been the limited sampling of the online effects of the ML design decisions and tuning due to the complexity of performing large ensembles of hybrid physics-ML climate simulations. Our work examines the coupled behavior of full-physics ML parameterizations using large ensembles of hybrid simulations, totalling 2,970 in our case. With extensive sampling, we statistically confirm that lowering offline error lowers online error (given certain constraints). However, we also reveal that decisions decreasing online error, like removing dropout, can trade off against hybrid model stability and vice versa. Nevertheless, we are able to identify design decisions that yield unambiguous improvements to offline and online performance, namely incorporating memory and training on multiple climates. We also find that converting moisture input from specific to relative humidity enhances online stability and that using a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) loss breaks the aforementioned offline/online error relationship. By enabling rapid online experimentation at scale, we empirically answer previously unresolved questions regarding subgrid ML parameterization design.
10 Jul 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
11 Jul 2024Published in ESS Open Archive