Neural Network-Based Identification of Cloud Types from Ground-Based Images of Cloud Layers

Abstract

Clouds are a significant factor in regional climates and play a crucial role in regulating the Earth’s water cycle through the interaction of sunlight and wind. Meteorological agencies around the world must regularly observe and record cloud data. Unfortunately, the current methods for collecting cloud data mainly rely on manual observation. This paper presents a novel approach to identifying ground-based cloud images to aid in the collection of cloud data. However, there is currently no publicly available dataset that is suitable for this research. To solve this, we built a dataset of surface-shot images of clouds called the SSC, which was overseen by the Macao Meteorological Society. Compared to previous datasets, the SSC dataset offers a more balanced distribution of data samples across various cloud genera and provides a more precise classification of cloud genera. This paper presents a method for identifying cloud genera based on cloud texture, using convolutional neural networks. To extract cloud texture effectively, we apply Gamma Correction to the images. The experiments were conducted on the SSC dataset. The results show that the proposed model performs well in identifying 10 cloud genera, achieving an accuracy rate of 80% for the top three possibilities.