Chinese researchers have developed a storm nowcasting system using satellite data and AI techniques, enabling effective convection forecasts up to four hours in advance. The breakthrough, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was achieved jointly by Wang Jingsong from the National Satellite Meteorological Center and researchers from various universities and institutes.
Nowcasting involves obtaining current atmospheric observations and using them to generate rapid, short-term predictions of the future atmospheric state. Its speed and practicality play a crucial role in early warning systems for natural hazards worldwide.
"Severe convective weather is characterized by strong suddenness, rapid evolution and great destructive power," said Wang Jingsong. The lead time and coverage of current systems still leave much to be desired and hardly meet the needs of disaster emergency response.
The research team leverages the Fengyun-4 series satellites for large-scale, seamless monitoring to obtain long-duration data, enabling the extraction and prediction of the complex and random movements of convective cloud clusters. The team proposes a deep diffusion model for satellite data (DDMS) to establish an AI-based convection nowcasting system. The system provides broad coverage of about 20,000,000 square kilometers, remarkable accuracy, and a high-resolution convective forecast every 15 minutes for up to four hours.
Its performance in convection nowcasting surpasses that of existing models, according to the research.
With the newly launched Fengyun-4 03 satellite, which enables inter-satellite coordination, high-speed data transmission, and broadcast functions, the three Fengyun-4 satellites will now form an integrated and coordinated observation network. This enhanced network will significantly improve China's capabilities in weather forecasting, meteorological disaster prevention, space weather monitoring, and ecological environment observation.
This advancement helps improve disaster emergency responses and reduce the destruction caused by severe convective weather.