Articles | Volume 18, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-787-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-787-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Review and perspective paper
| Highlight paper
| 
11 Feb 2025
Review and perspective paper | Highlight paper |
| 11 Feb 2025
| 11 Feb 2025
Moving beyond post hoc explainable artificial intelligence: a perspective paper on lessons learned from dynamical climate modeling
Ryan J. O'Loughlin
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Philosophy Department, Queens College, City University of New York, New York, NY 11367, USA
Department of Philosophy, Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, NY 10010, USA
Richard Neale
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80305, USA
Travis A. O'Brien
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Lawrence Berkeley Lab Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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Ankur Mahesh, William D. Collins, Boris Bonev, Noah Brenowitz, Yair Cohen, Joshua Elms, Peter Harrington, Karthik Kashinath, Thorsten Kurth, Joshua North, Travis O'Brien, Michael Pritchard, David Pruitt, Mark Risser, Shashank Subramanian, and Jared Willard
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 5575–5603, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5575-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5575-2025, 2025
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Simulating extreme weather events in a warming world is a challenging task for current weather and climate models. These models' computational cost poses a challenge in studying low-probability extreme weather. We use machine learning to construct a new probabilistic system. We give an in-depth explanation of how we constructed this system. We present a thorough pipeline to validate our method. Our method requires fewer computational resources than existing weather and climate models.
Ankur Mahesh, William D. Collins, Boris Bonev, Noah Brenowitz, Yair Cohen, Peter Harrington, Karthik Kashinath, Thorsten Kurth, Joshua North, Travis A. O'Brien, Michael Pritchard, David Pruitt, Mark Risser, Shashank Subramanian, and Jared Willard
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 5605–5633, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5605-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5605-2025, 2025
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We use machine learning emulators to create a massive ensemble of simulated weather extremes. This ensemble provides a large sample size, which is essential to characterize the statistics of extreme weather events and study their physical mechanisms. Also, these ensembles can be beneficial to accurately forecast the probability of low-likelihood extreme weather.
Bo Dong, Paul Ullrich, Jiwoo Lee, Peter Gleckler, Kristin Chang, and Travis A. O'Brien
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 961–976, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-961-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-961-2025, 2025
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A metrics package designed for easy analysis of atmospheric river (AR) characteristics and statistics is presented. The tool is efficient for diagnosing systematic AR bias in climate models and useful for evaluating new AR characteristics in model simulations. In climate models, landfalling AR precipitation shows dry biases globally, and AR tracks are farther poleward (equatorward) in the North and South Atlantic (South Pacific and Indian Ocean).
Ankur Mahesh, Travis A. O'Brien, Burlen Loring, Abdelrahman Elbashandy, William Boos, and William D. Collins
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3533–3557, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3533-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3533-2024, 2024
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Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are extreme weather events that can alleviate drought or cause billions of US dollars in flood damage. We train convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to detect ARs with an estimate of the uncertainty. We present a framework to generalize these CNNs to a variety of datasets of past, present, and future climate. Using a simplified simulation of the Earth's atmosphere, we validate the CNNs. We explore the role of ARs in maintaining energy balance in the Earth system.
Arjun Babu Nellikkattil, Danielle Lemmon, Travis Allen O'Brien, June-Yi Lee, and Jung-Eun Chu
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 301–320, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-301-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-301-2024, 2024
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This study introduces a new computational framework called Scalable Feature Extraction and Tracking (SCAFET), designed to extract and track features in climate data. SCAFET stands out by using innovative shape-based metrics to identify features without relying on preconceived assumptions about the climate model or mean state. This approach allows more accurate comparisons between different models and scenarios.
Po-Lun Ma, Bryce E. Harrop, Vincent E. Larson, Richard B. Neale, Andrew Gettelman, Hugh Morrison, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, Stephen A. Klein, Mark D. Zelinka, Yuying Zhang, Yun Qian, Jin-Ho Yoon, Christopher R. Jones, Meng Huang, Sheng-Lun Tai, Balwinder Singh, Peter A. Bogenschutz, Xue Zheng, Wuyin Lin, Johannes Quaas, Hélène Chepfer, Michael A. Brunke, Xubin Zeng, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Samson Hagos, Zhibo Zhang, Hua Song, Xiaohong Liu, Michael S. Pritchard, Hui Wan, Jingyu Wang, Qi Tang, Peter M. Caldwell, Jiwen Fan, Larry K. Berg, Jerome D. Fast, Mark A. Taylor, Jean-Christophe Golaz, Shaocheng Xie, Philip J. Rasch, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2881–2916, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2881-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2881-2022, 2022
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An alternative set of parameters for E3SM Atmospheric Model version 1 has been developed based on a tuning strategy that focuses on clouds. When clouds in every regime are improved, other aspects of the model are also improved, even though they are not the direct targets for calibration. The recalibrated model shows a lower sensitivity to anthropogenic aerosols and surface warming, suggesting potential improvements to the simulated climate in the past and future.
Prabhat, Karthik Kashinath, Mayur Mudigonda, Sol Kim, Lukas Kapp-Schwoerer, Andre Graubner, Ege Karaismailoglu, Leo von Kleist, Thorsten Kurth, Annette Greiner, Ankur Mahesh, Kevin Yang, Colby Lewis, Jiayi Chen, Andrew Lou, Sathyavat Chandran, Ben Toms, Will Chapman, Katherine Dagon, Christine A. Shields, Travis O'Brien, Michael Wehner, and William Collins
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 107–124, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-107-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-107-2021, 2021
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Detecting extreme weather events is a crucial step in understanding how they change due to climate change. Deep learning (DL) is remarkable at pattern recognition; however, it works best only when labeled datasets are available. We create
ClimateNet– an expert-labeled curated dataset – to train a DL model for detecting weather events and predicting changes in extreme precipitation. This work paves the way for DL-based automated, high-fidelity, and highly precise analytics of climate data.
Travis A. O'Brien, Mark D. Risser, Burlen Loring, Abdelrahman A. Elbashandy, Harinarayan Krishnan, Jeffrey Johnson, Christina M. Patricola, John P. O'Brien, Ankur Mahesh, Prabhat, Sarahí Arriaga Ramirez, Alan M. Rhoades, Alexander Charn, Héctor Inda Díaz, and William D. Collins
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 6131–6148, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6131-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6131-2020, 2020
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Researchers utilize various algorithms to identify extreme weather features in climate data, and we seek to answer this question: given a
plausibleweather event detector, how does uncertainty in the detector impact scientific results? We generate a suite of statistical models that emulate expert identification of weather features. We find that the connection between El Niño and atmospheric rivers – a specific extreme weather type – depends systematically on the design of the detector.
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Executive editor
This perspective paper examines in detail the concept of explicability in a climate model, whether conventional physics-based dynamical models, or those incorporating components based on machine learning. Everyone with an interest in climate models or their outputs would benefit from understanding the processes by which we can understand the importance and accuracy of these models and the methods by which it is possible to make sense of those outputs. This paper is a major contribution to that understanding. It is also very well written and should be widely read in the field.
This perspective paper examines in detail the concept of explicability in a climate model,...
Short summary
We draw from traditional climate modeling practices to make recommendations for machine-learning (ML)-driven climate science. Our intended audience is climate modelers who are relatively new to ML. We show how component-level understanding – obtained when scientists can link model behavior to parts within the overall model – should guide the development and evaluation of ML models. Better understanding yields a stronger basis for trust in the models. We highlight several examples to demonstrate.
We draw from traditional climate modeling practices to make recommendations for machine-learning...
