Leveraging an Atmospheric Foundational Model for Subregional Sea Surface Temperature Forecasting

TL;DR

This paper adapts an atmospheric foundational deep learning model to predict sea surface temperature in the Canary Upwelling System, demonstrating high accuracy and reduced computational costs compared to traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of a pre-trained atmospheric model for oceanographic SST forecasting through fine-tuning with high-resolution data.

Findings

Achieved RMSE of 0.119K in SST predictions

Maintained high anomaly correlation coefficient (~0.997)

Successfully captured large-scale SST patterns

Abstract

The accurate prediction of oceanographic variables is crucial for understanding climate change, managing marine resources, and optimizing maritime activities. Traditional ocean forecasting relies on numerical models; however, these approaches face limitations in terms of computational cost and scalability. In this study, we adapt Aurora, a foundational deep learning model originally designed for atmospheric forecasting, to predict sea surface temperature (SST) in the Canary Upwelling System. By fine-tuning this model with high-resolution oceanographic reanalysis data, we demonstrate its ability to capture complex spatiotemporal patterns while reducing computational demands. Our methodology involves a staged fine-tuning process, incorporating latitude-weighted error metrics and optimizing hyperparameters for efficient learning. The experimental results show that the model achieves a low RMSE of 0.119K, maintaining high anomaly correlation coefficients (ACC $\approx 0.997$). The model successfully reproduces large-scale SST structures but faces challenges in capturing finer details in coastal regions. This work contributes to the field of data-driven ocean forecasting by demonstrating the feasibility of using deep learning models pre-trained in different domains for oceanic applications. Future improvements include integrating additional oceanographic variables, increasing spatial resolution, and exploring physics-informed neural networks to enhance interpretability and understanding. These advancements can improve climate modeling and ocean prediction accuracy, supporting decision-making in environmental and economic sectors.