FourCastNet – Accelerating Global High-Resolution Weather Forecasting Using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators

🎙️ Episode 23: FourCastNet – Accelerating Global High-Resolution Weather Forecasting Using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators🔗 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3592979.3593412🌍 AbstractAs climate change intensifies extreme weather events, traditional numerical weather prediction (NWP) struggles to keep pace due to computational limits. This episode explores FourCastNet, a deep learning Earth system emulator that delivers high-resolution, medium-range global forecasts at unprecedented speed—up to five orders of magnitude faster than NWP—while maintaining near state-of-the-art accuracy.📌 Bullet points summaryFourCastNet outpaces traditional NWP with forecasts that are not only faster by several magnitudes but also comparably accurate, thanks to its data-driven deep learning approach.Powered by Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators (AFNO), the model efficiently handles high-resolution data, leveraging spectral convolutions, model/data parallelism, and performance optimizations like CUDA graphs and JIT compilation.Scales excellently across supercomputers such as Selene, Perlmutter, and JUWELS Booster, reaching 140.8 petaFLOPS and enabling rapid training and large-scale ensemble forecasts.Addresses long-standing challenges in weather and climate modeling, including limits in resolution, complexity, and throughput, paving the way for emulating fine-scale Earth system processes.Enables "Interactivity at Scale"—supporting digital Earth twins and empowering users to explore future climate scenarios interactively, aiding science, policy, and public understanding.💡 The Big IdeaFourCastNet revolutionizes weather forecasting by merging the power of deep learning and spectral methods, unlocking interactive, ultra-fast, and high-fidelity Earth system simulations for a changing world.📖 CitationKurth, Thorsten, et al. "Fourcastnet: Accelerating global high-resolution weather forecasting using adaptive fourier neural operators." Proceedings of the Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing Conference. 2023.

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