Distinguished Seminar in Computational Science and Engineering
April 3, 2025, 12-1PM
45-432 in Building 45 and Zoom Webinar
AI for weather & climate physics applications: Advances from planetary to km-scales.
Mike Pritchard
Director, Climate Simulation, NVIDIA Research & Professor, Earth System Sciences, University of California, Irvine
Abstract:
AI has rapidly changed the paradigm for simulating atmospheric dynamics from planetary to storm-resolving scales. In the first part of this talk I will review how a deterministic global AI weather model developed at NVIDIA has been re-calibrated for probabilistic prediction to generate huge ensemble counterfactuals of historical heat waves, relevant for climate risk calibration to low likelihood / high impact event exposure. Next, I will review emerging NVIDIA research technologies based on generative AI – for (i) spatial downscaling and new channel synthesis, (ii) its extension to ambitious domain sizes via a patch-based multi-diffusion approach, (iii) the advent of AI for dynamical downscaling and mesoscale forecasting and (iv) the promise of generative data fusion. I will conclude with some remarks on the exciting potential for end-to-end AI forecasting systems that portend a more interactive and computational efficient paradigm for simulating atmospheric and climate physics.
Bio:
Mike Pritchard has been experimenting with AI for atmospheric prediction since 2017 as faculty at UC Irvine, studying how to outsource nested calculations of explicit embedded convection to simple neural network parameterizations, towards a new class of hybrid physics-AI climate simulations. In 2022 he joined NVIDIA Research where he maintains a 50% appointment as Director of Climate Simulation Research, working with AI professionals on whole atmosphere AI forecasting and generative state estimation. He collaborates closely with the LEAP Science & Technology Center at Columbia University.
AI for weather & climate physics applications: Advances from planetary to km-scales.
Mike Pritchard
University of California, Irvine & NVIDIA