Learning from nature: insights into GraphDOP's representations of the Earth System

TL;DR

This paper shows that GraphDOP, trained only on meteorological data without prior knowledge, develops internal representations of Earth's physical systems, structures, and observation effects, revealing how neural networks learn complex Earth System features.

Contribution

It demonstrates that GraphDOP learns unified Earth System representations, emulates viewing effects, and infers unobserved meteorological structures solely from observational data.

Findings

Unified latent representation of Earth System state across observation types

Model captures viewing effects like sunglint and limb effects

Infers unobserved meteorological features such as jet streams and pressure patterns

Abstract

Through a series of experiments, we provide evidence that the GraphDOP model - trained solely on meteorological observations, using no prior knowledge - develops internal representations of the Earth System state, structure and dynamics as well as the characteristics of different observing systems. Firstly, we demonstrate that the network constructs a unified latent representation of the Earth System state which is common across different observation types. For example, cloud structures maintain physical consistency whether viewed in predictions for satellite radiances from different sensors, or for direct in-situ measurements of the cloud fraction. Secondly, we show examples that suggest that the network learns to emulate viewing effects - learned observation operators that map from the unified state representation to observed properties. Microwave sounder limb effects and geometric viewing effects, such as sunglint in visible imagery, are both well captured. Finally, we demonstrate that the model develops rich internal representations of the structure of meteorological systems and their dynamics. For instance, when the network is only provided with observations from a single infrared instrument, it is able to infer unobserved, non-local structures such as jet streams, surface pressure patterns and warm and cold air masses associated with synoptic systems. This work provides insights into how neural networks trained solely on observations of the Earth System spontaneously develop coherent internal representations of the physical world in order to meet the training objective - enhancing our understanding and guiding future development of these models.