Machine learning analysis and nowcasting of marine fog visibility using FATIMA Grand Banks campaign measurements

Introduction: This study presents the application of machine learning (ML) to evaluate marine fog visibility conditions and nowcasting of visibility based on the FATIMA (Fog and turbulence interactions in the marine atmosphere) campaign observations collected during July 2022 in the North Atlantic in the Grand Banks area and vicinity of Sable Island, northeast of Canada.

Methods: The measurements were collected using instrumentation mounted on the Research Vessel Atlantic Condor. The collected meteorological parameters were: visibility (Vis), precipitation rate, air temperature, relative humidity with respect to water, pressure, wind speed, and direction. Using all variables, the droplet number concentration was used to qualitatively indicate and assess characteristics of the fog using the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding projection method (t-SNE), which clustered the data into groups. Following t-SNE analysis, a correlation heatmap was used to select relevant meteorological variables for visibility nowcasting, which were wind speed, relative humidity, and dew point depression. Prior to nowcasting, the input variables were preprocessed to generate additional time-lagged variables using a 120-minute lookback window in order to take advantage of the intrinsic time-varying features of the time series data. Nowcasting of Vis time series for lead times of 30 and 60 minutes was performed using the ML regression methods of support vector regression (SVR), least-squares gradient boosting (LSB), and deep learning at visibility thresholds of Vis < 1 km and < 10 km.

Results: Vis nowcasting at the 60 min lead time was best with LSB and was significantly more skillful than persistence analysis. Specifically, using LSB the overall nowcasts at Vis 1 < km and Vis 10 < km were RMSE = 0.172 km and RMSE = 2.924 km, respectively. The nowcasting skill of SVR for dense fog (Vis ≤ 400 m) was significantly better than persistence at all Vis thresholds and lead times, even when it was less skillful than persistence at predicting high visibility.

Discussion: Thus, ML techniques can significantly improve Vis prediction when either observations or modelbased accurate time-dependent variables are available. The results suggest that there is potential for future ML analysis that focuses on modeling the underlying factors of fog formation.