DeepMind 的飓风预测突破令气象科学家感到意外

该 AI 模型肯定是从这些低分辨率数据中捕捉到了某些信息，从而能够预测风暴强度，但研究人员并不知道那究竟是什么。Alet 表示：“归根结底，它是一个黑箱；但这向物理学家发出了一个信号：某种此前未被理解的事情正在发生。”

该模型并不只是给出单一预测；它会为正在发展的风暴生成一系列可能情景。Alet 表示，这有助于捕捉任何潜在的“蝴蝶效应”——即相对于某一趋势的微小偏差，可能在后续导致大得多的变化。预报员可以将这些输出与其他模型的结果结合，用于判断一个风暴系统可能如何发展。去年，这一 AI 模型每场风暴生成 50 种情景；如今，它可生成 1,000 种。

Musgrave 表示：“凭借我们的计算能力，这是现有数值模型根本做不到的事情。”

Brennan 表示，DeepMind 的模型是预报员工具箱中一项出色的新工具，但强调它只是众多工具之一。他说：“不能保证某个模型因为去年表现出色，或是在某一场特定风暴中表现特别好，就一定会是下一个季节或下一场风暴中最好的模型。”他补充说，人类因素仍然至关重要。“飓风并不只是路径或强度预报，”他说，“它需要专家将这些预报转化为对实际影响的判断——而夺走人们生命的是这些影响。”

Google DeepMind 还宣布，将飓风季期间使用的 WeatherNext 模型开源，以便研究人员能够使用并改进这些模型。Alet 希望，向研究社区开放这些模型，能够帮助人们发现关于气旋运行机制的新见解。

他说：“我对科学发现感到非常兴奋。我认为 AI 正在为我们提供新的工具，以探索宇宙的规律。”

本文最初发表于 wired.com。

The AI model must be picking up on something in the lower-resolution data that allows it to make predictions about storm intensity, but the researchers don’t know what. “It’s a black box at the end of the day, but that gives physicists a signal that something is happening that was not previously understood,” Alet says.

The model doesn’t just spit out one prediction; it produces a range of potential scenarios for a developing storm. This helps to capture any potential “butterfly effect,” says Alet, where a small deviation from a trend could lead to much bigger changes down the line. Forecasters can use these outputs, alongside those of other models, to inform their predictions about how a storm system will likely unfold. Last year, the AI model created 50 scenarios per storm; now, it generates 1,000.

“That’s something that, with our computing power, we simply can’t do with our existing numerical models,” Musgrave says.

Brennan says DeepMind’s model is a great new tool in forecasters’ toolbox but emphasizes that it’s one of many. “There’s no guarantee that one model, because it did well last year or really did well for this particular storm, is necessarily going to be the best model for the next season or the next storm,” he says. The human element, he adds, is still critical. “A hurricane is not just a track or an intensity forecast,” he says. “It requires experts to translate that into what the impacts are going to be—and it’s the impacts that kill people.”

Google DeepMind also announced that it is open-sourcing the WeatherNext models used during hurricane season so that researchers can use and improve on them. Alet is hopeful that opening the models up to the research community could help uncover fresh insights into how cyclones work.

“I’m very excited about scientific discovery,” he says. “I think AI is giving us new tools to poke into the laws of the universe.”

This story originally appeared onwired.com.