Using Conditional Generative Adversarial 3-D Convolutional Neural Network for Precise Radar Extrapolation

Cong Wang, Ping Wang, Pingping Wang, Bing Xue, Di Wang

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing · 01 January 2021 · China Meteorological Administration (CMA)

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In one sentence. A 3-D CNN plus conditional GAN postprocessor sharpens radar echo extrapolations, improving intense echo and convective prediction over North China in 2015–2016.

Abstract

Radar echo extrapolation is a basic but essential task in meteorological services. It could provide radar echo prediction results with high spatiotemporal resolution in a computationally efficient way, and effectively enhance the operational system's forecasting capability for meteorological hazards. Traditional methods perform extrapolation by estimating echo motions between contiguous radar data. This strategy is difficult to characterize complex nonlinear meteorological processes effectively, and it is difficult to benefit from large historical data. Recently, machine learning (ML) models have been used for radar echo extrapolation. These methods have effectively improved extrapolation quality in a data-driven way and from the statistical perspective. Although the ML-based methods show excellent performance, they usually produce blurry extrapolations. This leads to underestimating radar echo intensity and making echo lack small-scale details. Moreover, it makes models difficult to predict severe convective hazards. To solve this problem, a two-stage extrapolation model based on 3-D convolutional neural network and conditional generative adversarial network is proposed. These two models form the “pre-extrapolation” and “postprocessing” paradigm. The pre-extrapolation model is trained in the traditional way and performs rough extrapolation. The postprocessing model uses the pre-extrapolation result as input and is trained with the adversarial strategy. It could correct the echo intensity and increase the echo's details. In the experiment, our model could provide more precise radar echo extrapolations than other methods, especially for intense echoes and convective systems, in the data of North China from 2015 to 2016.

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