U-Net: A deep-learning method for improving summer precipitation forecasts in China

A deep-learning method named U-Net was applied to improve the skill in forecasting summer (June–August) precipitation for at a one-month lead during the period 1981–2020 in China. The variables of geopotential height, soil moisture, sea level pressure, sea surface temperature, ocean salinity, and snow were considered as the model input to revise the seasonal prediction of the Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2). Results showed that on average U-Net reduced the root-mean-square error of the original CFSv2 prediction by 49.7% and 42.7% for the validation and testing set, respectively. The most improved areas were Northwest, Southwest, and Southeast China. The anomaly same sign percentages and temporal and spatial correlation coefficients did not present significant improvement but maintained the comparable performances of CFSv2. Sensitivity experiments showed that soil moisture is the most crucial factor in predicting summer rainfall in China, followed by geopotential height. Due to its advantages in handling small training dataset sizes, U-Net is a promising deep-learning method for seasonal rainfall prediction.