FastNet: Improving the physical consistency of machine-learning weather prediction models through loss function design

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17601v1
• Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2025 11:21:29 GMT
• Title: FastNet: Improving the physical consistency of machine-learning weather prediction models through loss function design
• Authors: Tom Dunstan, Oliver Strickson, Thusal Bennett, Jack Bowyer, Matthew Burnand, James Chappell, Alejandro Coca-Castro, Kirstine Ida Dale, Eric G. Daub, Noushin Eftekhari, Manvendra Janmaijaya, Jon Lillis, David Salvador-Jasin, Nathan Simpson, Ryan Sze-Yin Chan, Mohamad Elmasri, Lydia Allegranza France, Sam Madge, Levan Bokeria, Hannah Brown, Tom Dodds, Anna-Louise Ellis, David Llewellyn-Jones, Theo McCaie, Sophia Moreton, Tom Potter, James Robinson, Adam A. Scaife, Iain Stenson, David Walters, Karina Bett-Williams, Louisa van Zeeland, Peter Yatsyshin, J. Scott Hosking,
• Abstract summary: This study presents FastNet, a graph neural network (GNN)-based global prediction model.<n>We investigate the impact of alternative loss function designs on improving the physical realism of its forecasts.
• Score: 23.81615870716115
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Machine learning weather prediction (MLWP) models have demonstrated remarkable potential in delivering accurate forecasts at significantly reduced computational cost compared to traditional numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. However, challenges remain in ensuring the physical consistency of MLWP outputs, particularly in deterministic settings. This study presents FastNet, a graph neural network (GNN)-based global prediction model, and investigates the impact of alternative loss function designs on improving the physical realism of its forecasts. We explore three key modifications to the standard mean squared error (MSE) loss: (1) a modified spherical harmonic (MSH) loss that penalises spectral amplitude errors to reduce blurring and enhance small-scale structure retention; (2) inclusion of horizontal gradient terms in the loss to suppress non-physical artefacts; and (3) an alternative wind representation that decouples speed and direction to better capture extreme wind events. Results show that while the MSH and gradient-based losses \textit{alone} may slightly degrade RMSE scores, when trained in combination the model exhibits very similar MSE performance to an MSE-trained model while at the same time significantly improving spectral fidelity and physical consistency. The alternative wind representation further improves wind speed accuracy and reduces directional bias. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of loss function design as a mechanism for embedding domain knowledge into MLWP models and advancing their operational readiness.

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