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"# Exploring TC PRIMED, Chapter 3: Pixel-Based Neural Network Application\n",
"- Creators: Naufal Razin, Kathy Haynes, and Chris Slocum\n",
"- Affiliation: CIRA and NESDIS/STAR\n",
"\n",
"---\n",
"\n",
"## Overview\n",
"TC PRIMED contains passive microwave observations in their original swath structure. One of the ways in which users can apply a machine learning method to TC PRIMED swath data is by training a machine learning model for individual pixels. In this notebook, we will explore one way to pre-process TC PRIMED passive microwave data and apply a pixel-based machine learning method.\n",
"\n",
"## Prerequisites\n",
"To successfully navigate and use this notebook, you should be familiar with:\n",
"- the basics of Python programming such as loading modules, assigning variables, and list/array indexing\n",
"- NetCDF files and NetCDF groups (Chapter 1a of this Learning Journey)\n",
"- plotting data using `matplotlib`\n",
"- TC PRIMED overpass file data structure (Chapter 1b of this Learning Journey)\n",
"- basic performance metrics like mean squared error and mean absolute error\n",
"\n",
"## Learning Outcomes\n",
"By working through this notebook, you will learn how to:\n",
"- develop a pre-processing step for TC PRIMED passive microwave data for a pixel-based machine learning application\n",
"- apply a pixel-based machine learning method to TC PRIMED passive microwave data"
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"## Background\n",
"The Tropical Cyclone Precipitation, Infrared, Microwave, and Environmental Dataset (TC PRIMED) is a dataset centered around satellite passive microwave observations of tropical cyclones. TC PRIMED contains data from consistent sources, making it suitable for machine learning applications. For example, the passive microwave brightness temperature data in TC PRIMED has been corrected for any instrument drift and bias such that the observed brightness temperatures are consistent throughout the multiple years each satellite has been in orbit (Berg et al. 2016). Therefore, the differences in observed brightness temperatures are mainly due to differences in the characteristics of the different sensors in TC PRIMED.\n",
"\n",
"When developing any machine learning model, your dataset would usually consist of input feature(s) and target label(s). The input feature(s) is the input you would use to make your prediction and the target label(s) is what you want to predict. Since TC PRIMED stores passive microwave brightness temperature data in its original swath format, users can take one of two approaches to apply a machine learning model to the TC PRIMED swath data:\n",
"- process the swath data (like brightness temperature) into a more uniform data structure and use that as the input feature to predict a storm-scale phenomenon (the target label, e.g., is there a hurricane eye in the passive microwave image?)\n",
"- make pixel-based predictions by using the brightness temperature values at each pixel as the input feature to predict the target label within the same pixel (e.g., is there convective or stratiform precipitation in the passive microwave pixel?)\n",
"\n",
"In this notebook, we will go through an example of the second approach. And, in contrast to the *classification* examples provided above, we will employ a machine learning *regression*. In particular, we will use passive microwave brightness temperature observations from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM) satellite's Microwave Imager (GMI) sensor as our input feature to predict/regress the target label, which we have chosen to be the surface precipitation rate, at each pixel. Using GMI observations simplifies our example since:\n",
"- it makes observations using a conical-scanning sensor, which ensures a constant resolution across the swath\n",
"- its observations in the 10.65 GHz through 89.0 GHz frequencies are located on the same swath\n",
"\n",
"For our surface precipitation rate, we will use the NASA Goddard PROFiling algorithm (GPROF; Kummerow et al. 2015), also included in TC PRIMED. GPROF contains a surface precipitation rate variable that is available on the same swath as the passive microwave observations in the 10.65 through 89.0 GHz frequencies. The GPROF surface precipitation rate variable is in a unit of mm/hour.\n",
"\n",
"To recap, we will use the GPM passive microwave observations as our input features to predict/regress the surface precipitation rate at each pixel using GPROF as our target label. Note, however, GPROF uses a Bayesian approach, ancillary data such as reanalysis fields, and the passive microwave brightness temperature observations to obtain a precipitation profile within the passive microwave pixel. Therefore, **GPROF is not completely independent from the passive microwave observations.** We are simply using GPROF in this example to avoid additional layers of data pre-processing. Users can use their own independent dataset for a pixel-based prediction by regridding the dataset (e.g., observation from the GPM dual-frequency precipitation radar) onto the passive microwave swath. Figure 1 shows an example of the passive microwave brightness temperature observations and GPROF surface precipitation rate from Hurricane Irma (2017)."
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"\n",
"\n",
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