Cited by 121Meteorological Phenomena and SimulationsClimate variability and modelsOceanographic and Atmospheric Processes

Process‐Based Climate Model Development Harnessing Machine Learning: I. A Calibration Tool for Parameterization Improvement

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Couvreux, Fleur, Hourdin, Frédéric, Williamson, Daniel, Roehrig, Romain, Volodina, Victoria, Villefranque, Najda, Rio, Catherine, Audouin, Olivier +9 more·2021·Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

The development of parameterizations is a major task in the development of weather and climate models. Model improvement has been slow in the past decades, due to the difficulty of encompassing key physical processes into parameterizations, but also of calibrating or “tuning” the many free parameters involved in their formulation. Machine learning techniques have been recently used for speeding up the development process. While some studies propose to replace parameterizations by data‐driven neural networks, we rather advocate that keeping physical parameterizations is key for the reliability of climate projections. In this paper we propose to harness machine learning to improve physical parameterizations. In particular, we use Gaussian process‐based methods from uncertainty quantification to calibrate the model free parameters at a process level. To achieve this, we focus on the comparison of single‐column simulations and reference large‐eddy simulations over multiple boundary‐layer cases. Our method returns all values of the free parameters consistent with the references and any structural uncertainties, allowing a reduced domain of acceptable values to be considered when tuning the three‐dimensional (3D) global model. This tool allows to disentangle deficiencies due to poor parameter calibration from intrinsic limits rooted in the parameterization formulations. This paper describes the tool and the philosophy of tuning in single‐column mode. Part 2 shows how the results from our process‐based tuning can help in the 3D global model tuning.

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Crossref · 10.1029/2020ms002217

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  • Preconditioning by a multi-wave tuning of a single-column version of the model against explicit high-resolution simulations of cloud scenes may significantly accelerate the tuning process.

    “We showed in another study how preconditioning by a multi-wave tuning of a single-column version of the model against explicit high-resolution simulations of cloud scenes may significantly accelerate the tuning process (25, 45).”

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Authors
Couvreux, F., Hourdin, F., Williamson, D., Roehrig, R., Volodina, V., Villefranque, N., Rio, C., Audouin, O., Salter, J., Bazile, E., Brient, F., Favot, F., Honnert, R., Lefebvre, M., Madeleine, J., Rodier, Q., & Xu, W.
Affiliations
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • University of Exeter (GB)
  • The Alan Turing Institute (GB)
  • CNRM, University of Toulouse Meteo‐France CNRS Toulouse France
Corresponding author
Couvreux, Fleur
Venue
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Published
2021-02-26
Volume
13
Issue
3
ISSN
1942-2466 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3049378437
Cited by
121
References
113
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
FWCI
5.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (HIGH‐TUNE,ANR‐16‐CE01‐0010)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes
Keywords
climate model parameterization, parameter calibration, Gaussian process regression, uncertainty quantification, model calibration, boundary layer, large eddy simulation, structural uncertainty

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