Deep learning-based forecasting model for chlorophyll-a response to tropical cyclones in the Western North Pacific

Abstract

Tropical cyclones cause increases in sea surface chlorophyll-a concentration, which is important for studying variations in the regional marine environment. Precisely forecasting the variations of sea surface chlorophyll-a concentration induced by tropical cyclones remains a challenge. In this research, a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) neural network deep learning model was applied to predict the variations of sea surface chlorophyll-a concentration induced by typhoons in the Western North Pacific (WNP). Typhoons occurring between 2011 and 2020 were used as training cases and those from 2021 to 2022 as forecasting and testing cases. The input variables of the deep learning model include the sea surface wind at 10 meters (U10 and V10), sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), and sea surface chlorophyll-a concentration. The output variable was the chlorophyll-a concentration one day after the passage of the typhoon. Data from the previous 7 days were used to predict the chlorophyll-a concentration one day after the typhoon's passage, and the rolling forecast method was employed to predict chlorophyll-a concentration in the following 7 days. To assess the impact of input variables on the model's forecasting performance, ablation experiments were conducted. The results showed that when using U10, V10, and chlorophyll-a from the previous seven days as inputs, the model exhibited the best overall forecasting performance. Taking Typhoons Chanthu, In-fa, and Malou as examples, the root mean square error (RMSE) for the forecast results are 0.0143 mg · m−3, 0.0087 mg · m−3, and 0.0030 mg · m−3, the mean absolute errors (MAE) are 0.0072 mg · m−3, 0.0074 mg · m−3, and 0.0025 mg · m−3, and the spatial anomaly correlation coefficients (ACC) are 0.9968, 0.9775, and 0.9721, respectively. The results reveal that the most accurate forecasting performance was observed during the mid-phase of the moderate-intensity Typhoon Muifa, with RMSE, MAE, and ACC values of 0.0040 mg · m−3, 0.0032 mg · m−3, and 0.9894, respectively. The BiLSTM neural network model had the best forecasting performance for typhoons of moderate intensity and during the mid-term phase. This is because moderate-intensity typhoons or the mature phase of any typhoon tend to have relatively stable and more predictable paths, resulting in better predictions of chlorophyll-a concentrations. In future work, we intend to extend our training and forecasting to typhoons of various intensities, aiming to further refine and enhance predictive performance.