Intelligent Earth Seminar: Ilan Price (DeepMind)

27 November 14:00
School of Geography and the Environment: East Lab
ilanprice

Ilan Price is a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, where his current work is focused on using machine learning to advance weather forecasting.  Ilan completed his DPhil in Mathematics at the University of Oxford, in which he focused his research on sparsity and efficiency in deep learning. He has a relatively diverse and interdisciplinary background, including research, leadership, organisational and activist experience. Prior to the DPhil, he completed an MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing at Oxford, and received his undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of Cape Town.

Probabilistic weather forecasting with machine learning

Recent advances in machine learning (ML)-based weather prediction (MLWP) have produced ML-based models which exhibit less forecast error than single NWP simulations. However, these advances have focused primarily on single, deterministic forecasts which fail to represent uncertainty and estimate risk, and overall these MLWP models have remained less accurate and reliable than state-of-the-art operational NWP ensemble forecasts. This talk will present our recent work on GenCast, the first machine learning based probabilistic weather model to exhibit greater skill than the top operational medium-range weather forecasts.