Downscaling of Tropical Cyclone Surface Wind Fields With a Hybrid Attention Transformer

Abstract This study employs a Hybrid Attention Transformer‐based super‐resolution model to reconstruct tropical cyclone (TC) surface wind fields. The model downscales coarse‐resolution ERA5 reanalysis data to high‐resolution HWind analyses (1998–2013), increasing the horizontal resolution by a factor of five. First, this study assesses the impact of data set partitioning strategies and different meteorological input variables on model performance. The reconstructed TC surface wind fields and the radial profiles of azimuthally averaged surface winds agree well with the HWind analysis. Key TC metrics, including the maximum sustained wind speed (MSW) and the radius of 17 m s −1 winds (R17), show high correlations with HWind (0.81 and 0.92, respectively). When independently validated against IBTrACS records over the North Atlantic (1990–2020), the model maintains robust correlations, confirming its out‐of‐sample reliability across different periods and cases. The reconstructed past TC intensity and size metrics achieved by the developed model provide new opportunities for research, demonstrating the model's future potential in TC climatology and hazard assessment studies.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research Machine Learning and Computation
Published
2026-09-11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/2025jh001170
Primary Topic
Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Downscaling of Tropical Cyclone Surface Wind Fields With a Hybrid Attention Transformer

Kekuan Chu, Dazhi Xi, Shuai Wang, Chunhua Wang et al.
Journal of Geophysical Research Machine Learning and Computation
Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research
article

Downscaling of Tropical Cyclone Surface Wind Fields With a Hybrid Attention Transformer

Kekuan Chu, Dazhi Xi, Shuai Wang, Chunhua Wang, Na He
article en

Abstract

Abstract This study employs a Hybrid Attention Transformer‐based super‐resolution model to reconstruct tropical cyclone (TC) surface wind fields. The model downscales coarse‐resolution ERA5 reanalysis data to high‐resolution HWind analyses (1998–2013), increasing the horizontal resolution by a factor of five. First, this study assesses the impact of data set partitioning strategies and different meteorological input variables on model performance. The reconstructed TC surface wind fields and the radial profiles of azimuthally averaged surface winds agree well with the HWind analysis. Key TC metrics, including the maximum sustained wind speed (MSW) and the radius of 17 m s −1 winds (R17), show high correlations with HWind (0.81 and 0.92, respectively). When independently validated against IBTrACS records over the North Atlantic (1990–2020), the model maintains robust correlations, confirming its out‐of‐sample reliability across different periods and cases. The reconstructed past TC intensity and size metrics achieved by the developed model provide new opportunities for research, demonstrating the model's future potential in TC climatology and hazard assessment studies.

Journal of Geophysical Research Machine Learning and ComputationVol. 3(5)
Civil Aviation Administration of China (CN), Planetary Science Institute (US), University of Delaware (US), Nanjing University (CN), University of Hong Kong (HK)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 15%
Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research
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Downscaling of Tropical Cyclone Surface Wind Fields With a Hybrid Attention Transformer — Kekuan Chu, Dazhi Xi, et al. · Journal of Geophysical Research Machine Learning and Computation (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS