Decadal climate simulations using accurate and fast neural network emulation of full, longwave and shortwave, radiation

Abstract

An approach to calculating model physics using neural network emulations, previously proposed and developed by the authors, has been implemented in this study for both longwave and shortwave radiation parameterizations, or to the full model radiation, the most time-consuming component of model physics. The developed highly accurate neural network emulations of the NCAR Community Atmospheric Model (CAM) longwave and shortwave radiation parameterizations are 150 and 20 times as fast as the original/control longwave and shortwave radiation parameterizations, respectively. The full neural network model radiation was used for a decadal climate model simulation with the NCAR CAM. A detailed comparison of parallel decadal climate simulations performed with the original NCAR model radiation parameterizations and with their neural network emulations is presented. Almost identical results have been obtained for the parallel decadal simulations. This opens the opportunity of using efficient neural network emulations for the full model radiation for decadal and longer climate simulations as well as for weather prediction. © 2008 American Meteorological Society.