arXiv subjects

August Posch

Publications and source records attributed to August Posch.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Distilling deep optical flow stereo methods to retrieve dense three-dimensional wind fields

Geostationary atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) provide the dense horizontal wind vectors (u,v) and heights ingested into data assimilation systems. Traditional AMVs track features using window-based cross-correlation and estimate heights via infrared brightness temperatures paired with numerical weather prediction (NWP) background states, creating a circular dependency that yields inaccurate heights, high computational cost, and sparse retrievals. Stereo winds from GEO-GEO and GEO-LEO geometrically resolve heights from parallax shifts across different poses, eliminating NWP dependence and improving accuracy, but they remain computationally heavy with limited coverage. In this work, we replace window-based tracking in stereo matching with deep optical flow for efficient, improved retrieval. Fine-tuning balances a self-supervised geometric residual loss with supervised radiosonde reconstruction. To eliminate multi-satellite overlap requirements, we distill the stereo teacher into a single-satellite student model. Chi-square and height uncertainties from the teacher are emulated by the student for quality assurance. The student generates winds across full-disk GEO imagery globally. Validation compares stereo and student models against radiosondes, operational AMVs, ERA5 reanalysis, and EarthCARE cloud profiles. Results through triple collocation show that stereo winds improve performance beyond operational AMVs for water vapor bands (6.2, 6.9, and 7.3 {\mu}m), wit degradation in the long-wave infrared (11.2 {\mu}m) band.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Intercomparison of Machine Learning Algorithms for Remote Sensing-based In-season Crop Mapping

In-season crop type mapping is critical for food security in the face of increasingly extreme climate-related threats to crops. Currently, the USDA Cropland Data Layer provides crop type labels at 30m resolution and is available the February after harvest, but no product exists that maps crop types before harvest with satisfactory accuracy that would allow emergency managers to respond to crop threats in near real time. Furthermore, the relative advantages of a wide range of algorithms have not been evaluated in a way that accounts for interannual variability, until this study. Here, Harmonized Landsat-Sentinel surface reflectance imagery time series and crop rotation history information are combined to map corn in Iowa and almonds in California at 30m resolution accurately by early June in unseen years, with robust quantification of uncertainty due to phenology and crop distribution. Thousands of model configurations across ten machine learning algorithms were compared using a year-wise cross-validation and a suite of metrics. Hyperparameter search revealed Support Vector Machines to be the most successful algorithm overall, with a mean F1 score of 0.74 (0.59) across five unseen validation years for almonds by early June in California (corn by early June in Iowa). Interannual variation was a large source of uncertainty, but patterns showed the potential to further improve performance with ensemble approaches or ancillary data. Future work may extend these methods to include multiclass maps of all crop types, CONUS-wide maps, and in-season crop yield forecasting.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

The Influence of Ridership Weighting on Targeting and Recovery Strategies for Urban Rail Rapid Transit Systems

The resilience of urban rapid transit systems (URTs) to a rapidly evolving threat space is of much concern. Extreme rainfall events are both intensifying and growing more frequent under continuing climate change, exposing transit systems to flooding, while cyber threats and emerging technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles are exposing such systems to targeted disruptions. An imperative has emerged to model how networked infrastructure systems fail and devise strategies to efficiently recover from disruptions. Passenger flow approaches can quantify more dimensions of resilience than network science-based approaches, but the former typically requires granular data from automatic fare collection and suffers from large runtime complexities. Some attempts have been made to include accessible low-resolution ridership data in topological frameworks. However, there is yet to be a systematic investigation of the effects of incorporating low-dimensional, coarsely-averaged ridership volume into topological network science methodologies. We simulate targeted attack and recovery sequences using station-level ridership, four centrality measures, and weighted combinations thereof. Resilience is quantified using two topological measures of performance: the node count of a network's giant connected component (GCC), and a new measure termed the "highest ridership connected component" (HRCC). Three transit systems are used as case studies: the subways of Boston, New York, and Osaka. Results show that centrality-based strategies are most effective when measuring performance via GCC, while centrality-ridership hybrid strategies perform strongest by HRCC. We show that the most effective strategies vary by network characteristics and the mission goals of emergency managers, highlighting the need to plan for strategic adversaries and rapid recovery according to each city's unique needs.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Hybrid physics-AI outperforms numerical weather prediction for extreme precipitation nowcasting

Precipitation nowcasting, critical for flood emergency and river management, has remained challenging for decades, although recent developments in deep generative modeling (DGM) suggest the possibility of improvements. River management centers, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, have been using Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models for nowcasting but have struggled with missed detections even from best-in-class NWP models. While decades of prior research achieved limited improvements beyond advection and localized evolution, recent attempts have shown progress from physics-free machine learning (ML) methods and even greater improvements from physics-embedded ML approaches. Developers of DGM for nowcasting have compared their approaches with optical flow (a variant of advection) and meteorologists' judgment but not with NWP models. Further, they have not conducted independent co-evaluations with water resources and river managers. Here, we show that the state-of-the-art physics-embedded deep generative model, specifically NowcastNet, outperforms the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, the latest generation of NWP, along with advection and persistence, especially for heavy precipitation events. For grid-cell extremes over 16 mm/h, NowcastNet demonstrated a median critical success index (CSI) of 0.30, compared with a median CSI of 0.04 for HRRR. However, despite hydrologically relevant improvements in point-by-point forecasts from NowcastNet, caveats include the overestimation of spatially aggregated precipitation over longer lead times. Our co-evaluation with ML developers, hydrologists, and river managers suggests the possibility of improved flood emergency response and hydropower management.

physics.ao-ph↗