Prediction of Sea Surface Current Around the Korean Peninsula Using Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract

AbstractThe prediction of sea surface currents is essential for various marine activities such as disaster monitoring, fishing industries, and search and rescue operations. Continuous improvements in numerical models have made it possible to predict more realistic oceans using data assimilation and fine spatial resolution. However, such complicated ocean models require high computational power and time, making them difficult to use for near‐real time forecasting. To compensate for these high computational costs, novel approaches with efficient computational costs combined with numerical model outputs need to be developed. Artificial neural networks could be one of the solutions as they require low computational power for prediction, owing to pre‐trained networks. Here, we present a prediction framework applicable to surface current prediction in the seas around the Korean Peninsula using three‐dimensional (3‐D) convolutional neural networks. The network is based on a 3‐D U‐shaped network structure and is modified to predict sea surface currents using oceanic and atmospheric variables. The forecast procedure is optimized to minimize the error of the next day's sea surface current field with a spatial resolution of 1/24° and its recursively predicting structure allows more days to be predicted. The network performance is evaluated by changing the input days and variables to find the optimal surface‐current‐prediction artificial neural network model. The optimized model shows a root mean squared error of 2.3 cm/s for the first forecast day, demonstrating its strong potential for practical use in the near future.