Customized deep learning for precipitation bias correction and downscaling

[摘要] Systematic biases and coarse resolutions are major limitations ofcurrent precipitation datasets. Many deep learning (DL)-based studies havebeen conducted for precipitation bias correction and downscaling. However,it is still challenging for the current approaches to handle complexfeatures of hourly precipitation, resulting in the incapability ofreproducing small-scale features, such as extreme events. This studydeveloped a customized DL model by incorporating customized loss functions,multitask learning and physically relevant covariates to bias correct anddownscale hourly precipitation data. We designed six scenarios tosystematically evaluate the added values of weighted loss functions,multitask learning, and atmospheric covariates compared to the regular DLand statistical approaches. The models were trained and tested using theModern-era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version 2(MERRA2) reanalysis and the Stage IV radar observations over the northerncoastal region of the Gulf of Mexico on an hourly time scale. We found thatall the scenarios with weighted loss functions performed notably better thanthe other scenarios with conventional loss functions and a quantilemapping-based approach at hourly, daily, and monthly time scales as well asextremes. Multitask learning showed improved performance on capturing finefeatures of extreme events and accounting for atmospheric covariates highlyimproved model performance at hourly and aggregated time scales, while theimprovement is not as large as from weighted loss functions. We show thatthe customized DL model can better downscale and bias correct hourlyprecipitation datasets and provide improved precipitation estimates at finespatial and temporal resolutions where regular DL and statistical methodsexperience challenges.

[学科分类] 土木及结构工程学