Prediction of monthly Arctic sea ice concentrations using satellite and reanalysis data based on convolutional neural networks

Changes in Arctic sea ice affect atmospheric circulation, ocean current, and polar ecosystems. There have been unprecedented decreases in the amount of Arctic sea ice due to global warming. In this study, a novel 1-month sea ice concentration (SIC) prediction model is proposed, with eight predictors using a deep-learning approach, convolutional neural networks (CNNs). This monthly SIC prediction model based on CNNs is shown to perform better predictions (mean absolute error - MAE - of 2.28 %, anomaly correlation coefficient - ACC - of 0.98, root-mean-square error - RMSE - of 5.76 %, normalized RMSE - nRMSE - of 16.15 %, and NSE - Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency - of 0.97) than a random-forest-based (RF-based) model (MAE of 2.45 %, ACC of 0.98, RMSE of 6.61 %, nRMSE of 18.64 %, and NSE of 0.96) and the persistence model based on the monthly trend (MAE of 4.31 %, ACC of 0.95, RMSE of 10.54 %, nRMSE of 29.17 %, and NSE of 0.89) through hindcast validations. The spatio-temporal analysis also confirmed the superiority of the CNN model. The CNN model showed good SIC prediction results in extreme cases that recorded unforeseen sea ice plummets in 2007 and 2012 with RMSEs of less than 5.0 %. This study also examined the importance of the input variables through a sensitivity analysis. In both the CNN and RF models, the variables of past SICs were identified as the most sensitive factor in predicting SICs. For both models, the SIC-related variables generally contributed more to predict SICs over ice-covered areas, while other meteorological and oceanographic variables were more sensitive to the prediction of SICs in marginal ice zones. The proposed 1-month SIC prediction model provides valuable information which can be used in various applications, such as Arctic shipping-route planning, management of the fishing industry, and long-term sea ice forecasting and dynamics

Seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasting with probabilistic deep learning

Anthropogenic warming has led to an unprecedented year-round reduction in Arctic sea ice extent. This has far-reaching consequences for indigenous and local communities, polar ecosystems, and global climate, motivating the need for accurate seasonal sea ice forecasts. While physics-based dynamical models can successfully forecast sea ice concentration several weeks ahead, they struggle to outperform simple statistical benchmarks at longer lead times. We present a probabilistic, deep learning sea ice forecasting system, IceNet. The system has been trained on climate simulations and observational data to forecast the next 6 months of monthly-averaged sea ice concentration maps. We show that IceNet advances the range of accurate sea ice forecasts, outperforming a state-of-the-art dynamical model in seasonal forecasts of summer sea ice, particularly for extreme sea ice events. This step-change in sea ice forecasting ability brings us closer to conservation tools that mitigate risks associated with rapid sea ice loss

Seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasting with probabilistic deep learning.

Anthropogenic warming has led to an unprecedented year-round reduction in Arctic sea ice extent. This has far-reaching consequences for indigenous and local communities, polar ecosystems, and global climate, motivating the need for accurate seasonal sea ice forecasts. While physics-based dynamical models can successfully forecast sea ice concentration several weeks ahead, they struggle to outperform simple statistical benchmarks at longer lead times. We present a probabilistic, deep learning sea ice forecasting system, IceNet. The system has been trained on climate simulations and observational data to forecast the next 6 months of monthly-averaged sea ice concentration maps. We show that IceNet advances the range of accurate sea ice forecasts, outperforming a state-of-the-art dynamical model in seasonal forecasts of summer sea ice, particularly for extreme sea ice events. This step-change in sea ice forecasting ability brings us closer to conservation tools that mitigate risks associated with rapid sea ice loss

Scalable computing for earth observation - Application on Sea Ice analysis

In recent years, Deep learning (DL) networks have shown considerable improvements and have become a preferred methodology in many different applications. These networks have outperformed other classical techniques, particularly in large data settings. In earth observation from the satellite field, for example, DL algorithms have demonstrated the ability to learn complicated nonlinear relationships in input data accurately. Thus, it contributed to advancement in this field. However, the training process of these networks has heavy computational overheads. The reason is two-fold: The sizable complexity of these networks and the high number of training samples needed to learn all parameters comprising these architectures. Although the quantity of training data enhances the accuracy of the trained models in general, the computational cost may restrict the amount of analysis that can be done. This issue is particularly critical in satellite remote sensing, where a myriad of satellites generate an enormous amount of data daily, and acquiring in-situ ground truth for building a large training dataset is a fundamental prerequisite. This dissertation considers various aspects of deep learning based sea ice monitoring from SAR data. In this application, labeling data is very costly and time-consuming. Also, in some cases, it is not even achievable due to challenges in establishing the required domain knowledge, specifically when it comes to monitoring Arctic Sea ice with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which is the application domain of this thesis. Because the Arctic is remote, has long dark seasons, and has a very dynamic weather system, the collection of reliable in-situ data is very demanding. In addition to the challenges of interpreting SAR data of sea ice, this issue makes SAR-based sea ice analysis with DL networks a complicated process. We propose novel DL methods to cope with the problems of scarce training data and address the computational cost of the training process. We analyze DL network capabilities based on self-designed architectures and learn strategies, such as transfer learning for sea ice classification. We also address the scarcity of training data by proposing a novel deep semi-supervised learning method based on SAR data for incorporating unlabeled data information into the training process. Finally, a new distributed DL method that can be used in a semi-supervised manner is proposed to address the computational complexity of deep neural network training

Sea Ice Extraction via Remote Sensed Imagery: Algorithms, Datasets, Applications and Challenges

The deep learning, which is a dominating technique in artificial intelligence, has completely changed the image understanding over the past decade. As a consequence, the sea ice extraction (SIE) problem has reached a new era. We present a comprehensive review of four important aspects of SIE, including algorithms, datasets, applications, and the future trends. Our review focuses on researches published from 2016 to the present, with a specific focus on deep learning-based approaches in the last five years. We divided all relegated algorithms into 3 categories, including classical image segmentation approach, machine learning-based approach and deep learning-based methods. We reviewed the accessible ice datasets including SAR-based datasets, the optical-based datasets and others. The applications are presented in 4 aspects including climate research, navigation, geographic information systems (GIS) production and others. It also provides insightful observations and inspiring future research directions.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure

Spatial-Temporal Data Mining for Ocean Science: Data, Methodologies, and Opportunities

With the increasing amount of spatial-temporal~(ST) ocean data, numerous spatial-temporal data mining (STDM) studies have been conducted to address various oceanic issues, e.g., climate forecasting and disaster warning. Compared with typical ST data (e.g., traffic data), ST ocean data is more complicated with some unique characteristics, e.g., diverse regionality and high sparsity. These characteristics make it difficult to design and train STDM models. Unfortunately, an overview of these studies is still missing, hindering computer scientists to identify the research issues in ocean while discouraging researchers in ocean science from applying advanced STDM techniques. To remedy this situation, we provide a comprehensive survey to summarize existing STDM studies in ocean. Concretely, we first summarize the widely-used ST ocean datasets and identify their unique characteristics. Then, typical ST ocean data quality enhancement techniques are discussed. Next, we classify existing STDM studies for ocean into four types of tasks, i.e., prediction, event detection, pattern mining, and anomaly detection, and elaborate the techniques for these tasks. Finally, promising research opportunities are highlighted. This survey will help scientists from the fields of both computer science and ocean science have a better understanding of the fundamental concepts, key techniques, and open challenges of STDM in ocean

Machine learning tools for pattern recognition in polar climate science

This thesis explores the application of two novel machine learning approaches to the study of polar climate, with particular focus on Arctic sea ice. The first technique, complex networks, is based on an unsupervised learning approach which is able to exploit spatio-temporal patterns of variability within geospatial time series data sets. The second, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), is a supervised learning Bayesian inference approach which establishes a principled framework for learning functional relationships between pairs of observation points, through updating prior uncertainty in the presence of new information. These methods are applied to a variety of problems facing the polar climate community at present, although each problem can be considered as an individual component of the wider problem relating to Arctic sea ice predictability. In the first instance, the complex networks methodology is combined with GPR in order to produce skilful seasonal forecasts of pan-Arctic and regional September sea ice extents, with up to 3 months lead time. De-trended forecast skills of 0.53, 0.62, and 0.81 are achieved at 3-, 2- and 1-month lead time respectively, as well as generally highest regional predictive skill ($> 0.30$) in the Pacific sectors of the Arctic, although the ability to skilfully predict many of these regions may be changing over time. Subsequently, the GPR approach is used to combine observations from CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B satellite radar altimeters, in order to produce daily pan-Arctic estimates of radar freeboard, as well as uncertainty, across the 2018--2019 winter season. The empirical Bayes numerical optimisation technique is also used to derive auxiliary properties relating to the radar freeboard, including its spatial and temporal (de-)correlation length scales, allowing daily pan-Arctic maps of these fields to be generated as well. The estimated daily freeboards are consistent to CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3 to within $< 1$ mm (standard deviations $< 6$ cm) across the 2018--2019 season, and furthermore, cross-validation experiments show that prediction errors are generally $\leq 4$ mm across the same period. Finally, the complex networks approach is used to evaluate the presence of the winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) to summer sea ice teleconnection within 31 coupled climate models participating in phase 6 of the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Two global metrics are used to compare patterns of variability between observations and models: the Adjusted Rand Index and a network distance metric. CMIP6 models generally over-estimate the magnitude of sea-level pressure variability over the north-western Pacific Ocean, and under-estimate the variability over the north Africa and southern Europe, while they also under-estimate the importance of regions such as the Beaufort, East Siberian and Laptev seas in explaining pan-Arctic summer sea ice area variability. They also under-estimate the degree of covariance between the winter AO and summer sea ice in key regions such as the East Siberian Sea and Canada basin, which may hinder their ability to make skilful seasonal to inter-annual predictions of summer sea ice

Satellite and in situ observations for advancing global Earth surface modelling: a review

In this paper, we review the use of satellite-based remote sensing in combination with in situ data to inform Earth surface modelling. This involves verification and optimization methods that can handle both random and systematic errors and result in effective model improvement for both surface monitoring and prediction applications. The reasons for diverse remote sensing data and products include (i) their complementary areal and temporal coverage, (ii) their diverse and covariant information content, and (iii) their ability to complement in situ observations, which are often sparse and only locally representative. To improve our understanding of the complex behavior of the Earth system at the surface and sub-surface, we need large volumes of data from high-resolution modelling and remote sensing, since the Earth surface exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and discontinuities in space and time. The spatial and temporal variability of the biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and anthroposphere calls for an increased use of Earth observation (EO) data attaining volumes previously considered prohibitive. We review data availability and discuss recent examples where satellite remote sensing is used to infer observable surface quantities directly or indirectly, with particular emphasis on key parameters necessary for weather and climate prediction. Coordinated high-resolution remote-sensing and modelling/assimilation capabilities for the Earth surface are required to support an international application-focused effort

IceTFT v 1.0.0: Interpretable Long-Term Prediction of Arctic Sea Ice Extent with Deep Learning

Annual reductions in Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) due to global warming. According to International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate model projections, the summer Arctic will be nearly sea ice free in the 50s of the 21st century, resulting in sea level rise and thus affecting human life. Therefore, it is important to predict SIE accurately. For the most current studies, the majority of deep learning-based SIE prediction models focus on single-step prediction, and they not only have short lead times but also have limited forecasting skills. In addition, these models often lack interpretability. In this study paper, we construct the Ice Temporal Fusion Transformer (IceTFT) model, which consists mainly of the variable selection network (VSN), the long short-term memory (LSTM) encoder, and multi-headed attention mechanism. Then we select 11 predictors for IceTFT model, including SIE, atmospheric, and ocean variables according to the physical mechanisms influencing sea ice development. And the VSN in IceTFT can automatically adjust the weights of predictors and filter spuriously correlated variables. We also evaluate the IceTFT model from the division of the training set, the slicing methods of input data, and the length of input. The IceTFT model directly generates 12-month SIE with average monthly prediction errors of less than 0.21 106 km2. And it predicts the September SIE nine months in advance with prediction error of less than 0.1 106 km2, which is superior to the models from Sea Ice Outlook (SIO). Furthermore, we analyze the sensitivity of the selected predictors to the SIE prediction. It verifies that the IceTFT model has some physical interpretability. And the variable sensitivities also provide some reference for understanding the mechanisms governing sea ice development and selecting the assimilation variables in dynamic models.</p