Identification

Title

Deep-learning-based gridded downscaling of surface meteorological variables in complex terrain. Part I: Daily maximum and minimum 2-m temperature

Abstract

Many statistical downscaling methods require observational inputs and expert knowledge and thus cannot be generalized well across different regions. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are deep-learning models that have generalization abilities for various applications. In this research, we modify UNet, a semantic-segmentation CNN, and apply it to the downscaling of daily maximum/minimum 2-m temperature (TMAX/TMIN) over the western continental United States from 0.258 to 4-km grid spacings. We select high-resolution (HR) elevation, low-resolution (LR) elevation, and LR TMAX/TMIN as inputs; train UNet using Parameter-Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) data over the south- and central-western United States from 2015 to 2018; and test it independently over both the training domains and the northwestern United States from 2018 to 2019. We found that the original UNet cannot generate enough fine-grained spatial details when transferred to the new northwestern U.S. domain. In response, we modified the original UNet by assigning an extra HR elevation output branch/loss function and training the modified UNet to reproduce both the supervised HR TMAX/TMIN and the unsupervised HR elevation. This improvement is named "UNet-Autoencoder (AE)." UNet-AE supports semisupervised model fine-tuning for unseen domains and showed better gridpoint-level performance with more than 10% mean absolute error (MAE) reduction relative to the original UNet. On the basis of its performance relative to the 4-km PRISM, UNet-AE is a good option to provide generalizable downscaling for regions that are underrepresented by observations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7hm5csr

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-12-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

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name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact