# Generative Modeling of High-resolution Global Precipitation Forecasts

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.12504 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12504/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Oct 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis and Semantic Manipulation with Conditional GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11585/) (2017)
- [FourCastNet: A Global Data-driven High-resolution Weather Model using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11214/) (2022)
- [Skillful Precipitation Nowcasting using Deep Generative Models of Radar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00954/) (2021)
- [Stochastic Super-Resolution for Downscaling Time-Evolving Atmospheric Fields with a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10374/) (2020)
- [TSIT: A Simple and Versatile Framework for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12072/) (2020)
- [Increasing the accuracy and resolution of precipitation forecasts using deep generative models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12297/) (2022)
- [MS-nowcasting: Operational Precipitation Nowcasting with Convolutional LSTMs at Microsoft Weather](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09954/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Temporal Subsampling Diminishes Small Spatial Scales in Recurrent Neural Network Emulators of Geophysical Turbulence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.00100/) (2023)
- [Generative Nowcasting of Marine Fog Visibility in the Grand Banks area and Sable Island in Canada](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.06800/) (2024)
- [Harnessing AI data-driven global weather models for climate attribution: An analysis of the 2017 Oroville Dam extreme atmospheric river](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11605/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Forecasting global precipitation patterns and, in particular, extreme precipitation events is of critical importance to preparing for and adapting to climate change. Making accurate high-resolution precipitation forecasts using traditional physical models remains a major challenge in operational weather forecasting as they incur substantial computational costs and struggle to achieve sufficient forecast skill. Recently, deep-learning-based models have shown great promise in closing the gap with numerical weather prediction (NWP) models in terms of precipitation forecast skill, opening up exciting new avenues for precipitation modeling. However, it is challenging for these deep learning models to fully resolve the fine-scale structures of precipitation phenomena and adequately characterize the extremes of the long-tailed precipitation distribution. In this work, we present several improvements to the architecture and training process of a current state-of-the art deep learning precipitation model (FourCastNet) using a novel generative adversarial network (GAN) to better capture fine scales and extremes. Our improvements achieve superior performance in capturing the extreme percentiles of global precipitation, while comparable to state-of-the-art NWP models in terms of forecast skill at 1--2 day lead times. Together, these improvements set a new state-of-the-art in global precipitation forecasting.