Prof. Elizabeth A. Barnes
Dalton Family Chair in Environmental Data Science & Sustainability
Professor of Computing & Data Sciences
Professor of Earth & Environment

AI weather emulators are remarkably skillful. Yet, what they have actually learned, and whether we should trust it, remains unclear. I will share a few explorations from my group into what and how these models learn, with a focus on training dynamics: watching physical relationships and emergent climate phenomena emerge (and sometimes vanish) over the course of training, which opens the door to intervening as it learns. I will also touch on using these emulators in unphysical ways to explore extreme events, and what it might mean that they forecast so well while missing much of the underlying physics.