Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
DOI 10.1007/s10236-017-1032-9
Prediction of daily sea surface temperature using efficient
neural networks
Kalpesh Patil 1 & Makaranad Chintamani Deo 1
Received: 16 August 2016 / Accepted: 17 January 2017 / Published online: 2 February 2017
# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Abstract Short-term prediction of sea surface temperature
(SST) is commonly achieved through numerical models.
Numerical approaches are more suitable for use over a large
spatial domain than in a specific site because of the difficulties
involved in resolving various physical sub-processes at local
levels. Therefore, for a given location, a data-driven approach
such as neural networks may provide a better alternative. The
application of neural networks, however, needs a large experi-
mentation in their architecture, training methods, and formation
of appropriate input–output pairs. A network trained in this man-
ner can provide more attractive results if the advances in network
architecture are additionally considered. With this in mind, we
propose the use of wavelet neural networks (WNNs) for predic-
tion of daily SST values. The prediction of daily SST values was
carried out using WNN over 5 days into the future at six different
locations in the Indian Ocean. First, the accuracy of site-specific
SST values predicted by a numerical model, ROMS, was
assessed against the in situ records. The result pointed out the
necessity for alternative approaches. First, traditional networks
were tried and after noticing their poor performance, WNN was
used. This approach produced attractive forecasts when judged
through various error statistics. When all locations were viewed
together, the mean absolute error was within 0.18 to 0.32 °C for
a 5-day-ahead forecast. The WNN approach was thus found to
add value to the numerical method of SST prediction when
location-specific information is desired.
Responsible Editor: Pierre F.J. Lermusiaux
* Makaranad Chintamani Deo
mcdeo@civil.iitb.ac.in
1
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 4000 076, India
Keywords Sea surface temperature . SST prediction . Neural
networks . Wavelet networks
1 Introduction
The knowledge of potential variations in the daily values of
sea surface temperature (SST) at a given geographical location
is applied for planning specific activities in coastal areas, such
as fishing expeditions and recreational events, and for studies
monitoring the growth of marine microorganisms. However,
the prediction of SST is fraught with a high amount of com-
plexity, with large variations arising out of irregularities in
heat radiation and flux, and the uncertain nature of the wind
blowing over the sea surface.
The SST prediction can be made with the help of physics-
based numerical methods or, alternatively, with data-driven
methods. The numerical approach is well suited for predictions
over a large spatial domain, while data-driven approaches can be
tailor-made for specific sites. There are alternative numerical and
data-based procedures currently in use for this purpose. The
latter methods range from common statistical and stochastic
ones to the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence
tools. Examples of the traditional statistical techniques applied
until now for this purpose include the Markov model (Xue and
Leetmaa 2000), pattern searching (Agarwal et al. 2001), and
regression models (Laepple and Jewson 2007). Among modern
data-driven methods, artificial neural networks (ANNs) appear
to be the most popular because of their flexibility in fitting to
random data and their relatively simple development.
Nonetheless, approaches such as genetic algorithms and support
vector machine (SVM) have also been attempted (Martinez and
Hsieh 2009; Wu et al. 2006).
In the past, many researchers have used ANNs to success-
fully predict the SST. Tangang et al. (1997) made seasonal
358
SST predictions over a specific region in the tropical Pacific
by devising an ANN with the input of empirical orthogonal
functions of wind-stress and SST anomalies. Pozzi et al.
(2000) demonstrated the effectiveness of ANN as an alterna-
tive to the conventional approaches in paleoceanography.
Tripathi et al. (2006) explored the monthly averaged SST
predictions for a region in the Indian Ocean. Tang et al.
(2000) made a comparison between canonical correlation
analysis, ANN, and linear regression for the prediction of
equatorial SST in the Pacific. Using meteorological variables
as inputs, Garcia-Gorriz and Garcia-Sanchez (2007) made
SST predictions in the western Mediterranean Sea. Gupta
and Malmgren (2009) assessed the prediction capabilities of
several methods based on transfer functions, regression, and
ANN. In a comparative study across SVM, regression, and
ANN, Martinez and Heish (2009) found that ANN was able
to provide better predictions than SVM. Lee et al. (2011),
using ANN, identified the sources of errors in satellite-based
SST estimates. Mohongo and Deo (2013) predicted monthly
and seasonal SST anomalies near an eastern African shore by
using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)
and ANN methods; they found that a non-linear
autoregressive network performed better than ARIMA in the
prediction of SST, and in capturing the El Niño Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events.
It can be seen that the data-driven methods used in several
earlier works consisted of time series forecasting, in which a
historical sequence of observations was used to recognize a
hidden pattern across them, and the SST forecast was made by
sliding such pattern upwards along the time axis. Such tem-
poral predictions, according to Taken (1981), were seen as
equivalent to the causal mapping of physics-based numerical
methods and will be referred to later.
A review of the past publications mentioned above shows
that the ANN is an attractive technique to predict SST, and there
is an opportunity to make it more useful by taking advantage of
rapid advances in the ANN technology. The present study is
oriented toward this aim, and it attempts to make daily predic-
tions of SST over five time steps into the future with the help of a
hybrid Bwavelet transform–ANN^ technique. This study goes
beyond a previous one (Patil et al. 2016), by comparing the
predictions with in situ instrumental records and testing the re-
sults at several locations in the Indian Ocean. It is considered that
such revalidation with a more rigorous analysis could make the
suggested approach more acceptable to the user community.
However, it is emphasized that the suggested method is site
specific and it is targeted at daily predictions of SST.
2 Locations of study and data
The data required for predicting SST with the help of data-driven
approaches can be derived from the product runs of numerical
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
models of atmosphere and ocean, over geographical grids of a
certain size. While this approach can yield SST data for a long
period and over a close grid spacing, the resulting SST is none-
theless synthetic and, therefore, may involve a certain amount of
inherent inaccuracy. For accurate predictions, remotely sensed
and in situ measurements are inevitable. The remotely sensed or
satellite-based techniques consist of sensing the ocean radiation
of certain wavelengths of an electromagnetic spectrum and re-
lating it to SST. The moderate resolution imaging
spectroradiometer or microwave radiometry, based on an imag-
ing radiometer, is another technique for this purpose. Regarding
in situ data collection, a variety of instruments is in use, such as
thermometers and thermistors mounted on drifting or moored
buoys, Argo type of buoys, and moorings.
In order to improve the accuracy of the numerical products,
actual SST measurements can be assimilated by a variety of
methods such as optimal interpolation or Kalman Filter
(Reynolds et al. 2007; Wan and Van Der Merwe 2000).
Similarly, site-specific SST data collected by alternative
methods can be synthesized and combined together to provide
more accurate input in modeling. However, this may involve
some gaps in data filled up by the outcome of numerical mod-
el runs, constituting the so-called reanalysis datasets.
In this study, we first examine the accuracy of the site-
specific information yielded by a numerical model by com-
paring it with in situ records. Thereafter, we attempt to predict
more accurately daily SST values, over a few time steps into
the future, by means of neural networks trained with the help
of reanalysis data. Therefore, the datasets used in this study
are of three different types: reanalysis, numerical, and in situ
SST observations.
2.1 Reanalysis data
The reanalysis data used in this work were extracted from the
daily SST product of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), over grids of size 0.25° × 0.25°
each, available on the web portal http://www.esrl.noaa.
gov/psd/. This data product, called BHigh Resolution OI v2,^
had resulted from the optimum interpolation of high-resolution
information from the Advanced Very High Resolution
Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Advanced Microwave
Scanning Radiometer (AMSR). The radiometer information
has been adjusted for the satellite bias using in situ data from
ships and buoys. For further information on the blending of
AVHRR and AMSR in the SST product, reference is made to
Reynolds et al. (2007). The considered SST data ranged from
1981 to 2015.
2.2 In situ data
The in situ measurements of daily SST came from the instru-
mented buoys deployed under the BResearch Moored Array
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368 359

for African-Asian-Australian Monsoon analysis and Table 1 Coordinates of the study locations
Prediction (RAMA)^ project. The data were recorded by spe- Locations
cial moorings with the help of sensors at a nominal depth of
1 m from the sea surface. More details of the sensors and the L4 L11 L14 L16 L19 L24
RAMA buoys can be seen in McPhaden et al. (2009). The Latitude (°N or S) 0 1.5 S 12 S 15 N 4N 5S
time length of this in situ data was around 13.5 years, ranging Longitude (°E) 67 80.5 80.5 90 90 95
from January 2002 to June 2015.

2.3 Numerical data
The numerical predictions of daily SST values used herein
belong to the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS).
ROMS is a primitive-equation ocean model used for a wide
range of oceanographic applications (Moore et al. 2004;
Wilkin et al. 2005). The Indian National Centre for Ocean
Information Services (INCOIS) made these data available on
request (Francis et al. 2013). This information corresponds to
a period of 29 months, from January 2013 to May 2015.
2.4 Study locations
Depending on the simultaneous availability of all the three
datasets mentioned above, six sites located in the Indian
Ocean were selected, code-named as L4, L11, L14, L16,
L19, and L24. Arrows in Fig. 1 show these sites. This figure
also indicates the sites numbered from 1 to 27 where instru-
mented floating buoys were deployed under the RAMA pro-
ject. The exact latitudes and longitudes of these sites are given
in Table 1.
It was necessary to interpolate the reanalysis data to the
exact study locations, which was carried out with the help of
a bilinear interpolation. The numerical predictions of SST did
not need any interpolation because the coordinates of the lo-
cations matched with the grid points of ROMS SST data.
However, the same predictions required to be averaged to
daily scales from the original 6-h intervals.
3 Methodology
The modeling scheme adopted in this work to make future
SST predictions is based on the time series forecasting princi-
ple. In such forecasting, the ANN considers a selected number
(typically 5 to 16) of preceding values, identifies an unknown
pattern in it, and by sliding one step ahead and maintaining the
same pattern, it makes the desired future prediction. As per the
well-known Taken’s theorem (Taken 1981) in signal process-
ing, modeling a cause–effect structure (essentially the under-
lying physical process) is the same as modeling the time series
of the effect because it is assumed that the underlying causal
relationship is reflected in the very sequence of the occurrence
of the preceding values of the time series. Hence, if we model
the preceding observations, there is no need to model the
causal behavior. Thus, the modeling procedure adopted here
implicitly takes care of the past changes in the SST arising out

Fig. 1 Locations of the buoys

deployed under the RAMA
project. Stations 1 to 27 are those
where SST is recorded and these
include the study locations: 4, 11,
14, 16, 19, and 24 shown with
small arrows
360
of flow reversals, eddies, and upwelling typically occurring in
the Indian Ocean, as example.
Considering the availability of simultaneous sets of data,
the analysis was restricted to a period of 29 months ranging
from January 2013 to May 2015. The first 70% of the sample
was used for calibration or training of models, while the re-
maining 30% was employed for their testing.
In order to arrive at the best choice, a large number of trials
were conducted with traditional ANN architecture, such as
feed forward, recurrent, and radial basis, and also with alter-
native network training algorithms of ordinary gradient de-
scent, conjugate gradient, and resilient back-propagation
(Addison 2002; Haykin 1999; Kosko 1992). However, it
was finally found that one of the latest and hybrid types of
network, called the wavelet neural network (WNN), per-
formed the most satisfactorily. The WNN is a combination
of a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and ANN, as will be
briefly explained below.
3.1 Discrete wavelet transform
Discrete wavelet transform is the most popular form of signal
transformation because it provides in a signal a high resolution
in time and low resolution in frequency at higher frequencies,
and vice versa for lower frequencies. A wavelet transform
fundamentally isolates frequency in a given signal at different
time resolutions. Transformation of the signal is done by scal-
ing (dilation) and transformation (shifting) functions, which
are derived from a mother wavelet function.
The mother wavelet, Ψs,u (x), where s and u are scale and
position parameters, respectively, and x is an independent var-
iable, can be expressed as follows:
1  x−u 
Ψs;u ðxÞ ¼ pffiffi ψ ð1Þ
s s
The parameter Bu^ relates the location of the wavelet func-
tion when it is shifted through the signal, and thus it represents
the time-related information, and the parameter Bs^ represents
the frequency related information. If ψ*(.) is the complex con-
jugate of ψ(.), then the wavelet transform WTs,u [f(x)] for a
function f(x) is mathematically given as
∞
1  x−u 
WT s;u ½ f ðxÞ ¼ ∫ f ðxÞ pffiffi ψ* dx ð2Þ
−∞ s s
The mother wavelet either compresses the signal (high
pass), which provides the detailed hidden information in the
signal, or expands it (dilates, low pass) to provide approximate
information. The transformed signals with high (detail) and
low (approximate) frequencies are analyzed independently.
The approximate component is further transformed into sub-
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
level detail and approximate signals, which constitutes multi-
level decomposition.
There are alternate mother wavelet functions available for
use, including Haar, Symlet, Coiflet, Daubechies, and Meyer.
These wavelet families are classified according to the width of
the filter window (which influences the localization) and num-
ber of vanishing moments (which represents the polynomial
behavior of data). For further reading on the wavelet families,
please refer to Addison (2002), Dghais and Ismail (2013), and
Shoiab et al. (2014). In this study, the Bdiscrete approximation
of Meyer wavelet^ was selected as wavelet family because it
has not only a quick decay and infinite differentiability but
also a compact spread in the frequency domain (Lu et al.
2012), facilitating efficient filtering. Using this wavelet, the
original signal was transformed into detail and approximation
sub-signals up to three levels in this application.
The discrete Meyer wavelet has a shape as in Fig. 2a, which
shows the variation of signal strength with time during low
and high passes.
3.2 Artificial neural network
ANN is made up of artificial neurons. Typically, it has three
layers: input, hidden, and output. Each neuron is associated
with some weight. Every neuron gets an input from its previ-
ous layer, and then the weighted sum of inputs, after adding
some bias, is transferred to the next layer through a transfer
function. A stepwise flow of information in an ANN is ex-
plained below, assuming that it has Bi^ neurons in the input
layer, Bh^ neurons in the single hidden layer, and Bo^ neurons
in the output layer (Fig. 2b).
(a) Sum up weighted inputs at each node in hidden layer:
 
N h ¼ ∑i;h W i;h X i þ Bh ð3Þ
where N h = weighted sum for hth hidden node,
Wi,h = weight of ith input and hth hidden node, Xi = input at
ith input node, and Bh = bias value at the hth hidden node.
(b) Transfer the weighted input to hidden neurons by the
tan-sigmoid function, as below:
1
Hh ¼ ð4Þ
½1 þ e−2N h −1
where Hh = transferred weighted input at hth hidden node.
(c) Sum up the weighted information at each node in output
layer:
 
N o ¼ ∑h;o W h;o H h þ Bo ð5Þ
where N o = weighted sum for oth output node,
W h,o = weight of hth hidden and oth output node, and
Bo = bias value at the oth output node.
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368 361

Fig. 2 a Variation of signal

strength (y-axis) versus time (x-
axis) in a discrete Meyer wavelet
for low and high passes. b Typical
ANN architecture

(a) Variation of signal strength (y axis) versus time (x axis) in a discrete Meyer wavelet
for low and high passes

Input Layer Hidden Layer Output Layer

Neuron
N Weight Bias Neuron

(b) Typical ANN architecture

(d) Transfer the above weighted sum, No, from the hidden
neurons to output neurons by linear transfer function, as below:
Oo ¼ N o :ðpurelin transfer functionÞ ð6Þ
where Oo = transferred weighted input from hidden layer to
oth output node.
This inter-connected network is trained before its actual use
with the help of a training algorithm. The training of ANN, or
fixing connections weights and bias, is done by iteratively
processing input–output pairs, and by minimizing the errors
for each pair, in order to obtain an optimum combination of
weights and biases. A cross-validation method is applied to
avoid overtraining and biasing of prediction results. Various
training algorithms are available to train the neural network,
such as quasi-Newton, Bayesian regulation, Levenberg–
Marquardt (LM), Resilient back-propagation, and Scaled con-
jugate gradient. Among available algorithms, the LM is con-
sidered as the fastest to train the moderately sized neural net-
works, up to several hundred weights (Hagen and Menhaj
1994). Therefore, the ANN used in this study was trained by
the LM algorithm. For details of this algorithm, readers are
referred to Marquardt (1963).
Assessed by the trials aimed at achieving the best testing
performance, and considering the uniformity across various
ANNs, the number of hidden neurons was kept as four.
3.3 Wavelet neural network
Wavelet neural network (WNN) is a combination of DWT and
ANN. As mentioned earlier, in this work, the original signal
was decomposed up to three levels of sub-signals using DWT.
Thus, three details (D1, D2, and D3) and one approximate (A3)
series are obtained as in Fig. 3, showing the decomposition of
the SST time series at a typical location (L19).
The WNN was employed to forecast daily SST over a 5-
day horizon. For training the ANN, a segment of preceding
SST values of these details and approximate series were given
as input, and SST values in the original (not decomposed)
series served as the output or target values. If BS^ is the orig-
inal SST series and D1, D2, D3, and A3 are its decomposed
series, then targets were given from S and inputs were given
362 Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368

Fig. 3 Discrete wavelet

transform of SST anomaly series

SST (°C)
with three level wavelet
decomposition at location BL19^
over a period of 881 days (01-Jan-
2013 to 31-May-2015)

A3 (°C)
D3 (°C)
D2 (°C)
D1 (°C)

from D1, D2, D3, and A3. Table 2 gives the number of values 4 Results and discussion
of inputs (from each decomposed series) and targets for each
location, while Fig. 4 depicts the WNN architecture along The basic statistics in the form of mean, standard deviation,
with an inserted table that typically presents input and output and coefficient of variation of SST, along with their observed
at location L24 mentioned in the last row of Table 2. range, is presented in Table 3. It may be noticed that station
The performance of the WNN model was assessed by three 16, being far away from the equator, has the lowest mean and
statistical error criteria, namely, correlation coefficient, r; root maximum range. It also has the highest variance in SST, in
mean square error, RMSE; and mean absolute error, MAE. terms of the standard deviation and coefficient of variation.
The Br^ measures a linear association between the modeled However, such variability was not found to pose any difficulty
and the target SST and it is highly influenced by errors or for the accurate prediction of SST, owing to the strength of the
deviations among the high values. The RMSE gives an overall models used. Similarly, small differences in SST values at
error structure but it is also sensitive to high order deviations. other stations did not lead to specific problems in modeling,
The MAE, commonly understood in engineering assessments, as will be seen later in this section.
similarly provides an overall picture of errors, although it ne- To begin with, the accuracy of the numerical SST predic-
glects the positive or negative type of errors. tion over a 5-day horizon was assessed within the testing
The development of networks presented in this work was done period of December 10, 2014 to May 27, 2015, which formed
with the help of Matlab tool box, version 8 (Misity et al. 2010). the last 20% segment of the total sample. Table 4 shows the
results of the comparison between numerical prediction of
SST and in situ data, at all six stations over the five lead times.
Table 2 Inputs and targets used for WNN at each location It can be seen that while the r values were fairly high and thus
attractive, the RMSE and MAE, which should have been low,
Inputs Targets
were also indicating a high margin for improvement in the
Locations D1, D2, D3, and A3 S obtained accuracy.
L4 7 5 Therefore, and as mentioned in the preceding section,
L11 11 5 WNNs were developed to predict daily values of SST at all
L14 13 5 six locations of study and over a time horizon of 5 days in
L16 11 5 advance. The training of WNN was done by the reanalysis
L19 16 5 (NOAA OI v2) data, and the trained networks were tested as
L24 5 5 per the actual SST observations made by the RAMA buoy
network. Additionally, the outcome of WNN was compared
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368 363

Fig. 4 WNN architecture for location BL24^

with the more common and traditional three-layered feed-for- WNN, while Fig. 5b shows the same comparison from
ward back-propagation ANN (exemplified in Fig. 2) and with RAMA buoys, WNN, and the numerical ROMS model. In ad-
a base level persistent model (PER). The input and output of dition, Fig. 5c depicts the same comparison across RAMA
such ANN belonged to the original (not decomposed) SST buoys, WNN, and the PER model. These comparisons are for
series. The PER consisted in taking the predicted value as a lead time of 4 days at location L19 and over a testing period of
equal to the current one, i.e., SST(t + Δt) = SST (t), in which 169 days, ranging from December 10, 2014 to May 27, 2015.
SST (t) is SST at the current time t while SST (t + Δt) is the As can be seen from these figures, the WNN SST predic-
predicted value of SST at time (t + Δt). tions are better than the numerical ROMS, traditional ANN,
The reanalysis data were interpolated at the study locations.
Because the changes in SST are very small compared to their
absolute values, for the model development, the anomalies of Table 4 Performance indices of numerical SST predictions when
SST from the mean were preferred rather than their absolute compared with in situ SST data
values. Hence, the reanalysis data were converted into anom- Lead time (in days) 1 2 3 4 5
alies by subtracting the long-term mean corresponding to the
period of 32 years (1982 to 2014) from the absolute values. Location
These anomalies at each location were then decomposed by L4 r 0.83 0.81 0.81 0.80 0.79
DWT at three levels to produce details (D1, D2, and D3) and RMSE (°C) 0.84 0.88 0.90 0.93 0.94
approximate (A3) components, which were further supplied to MAE (°C) 0.73 0.76 0.77 0.79 0.79
ANN as input to make the predictions. These predicted anom- L11 r 0.90 0.89 0.89 0.86 0.86
alies were then added to long-term means to get the absolute RMSE (°C) 0.59 0.61 0.62 0.64 0.64
values of SST predictions. MAE (°C) 0.53 0.55 0.55 0.57 0.57
Figure 5a gives an example of comparison between SST L14 r 0.73 0.73 0.72 0.68 0.63
predicted from RAMA buoy-based observations, ANN, and RMSE (°C) 0.56 0.56 0.57 0.61 0.66
MAE (°C) 0.50 0.49 0.49 0.50 0.52
L16 r 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96
Table 3 Basic statistics of SST data RMSE (°C) 0.55 0.53 0.52 0.52 0.52
MAE (°C) 0.44 0.42 0.41 0.41 0.42
L16 L19 L4 L11 L24 L14
L19 r 0.76 0.76 0.75 0.76 0.76
Minimum (°C) 26.38 28.45 27.40 28.20 28.25 27.66 RMSE (°C) 0.77 0.78 0.79 0.79 0.80
Average (°C) 28.54 29.68 29.28 29.45 29.30 28.99 MAE (°C) 0.67 0.68 0.68 0.69 0.70
Maximum (°C) 31.76 30.93 31.43 30.53 30.68 30.5 L24 r 0.90 0.89 0.88 0.87 0.84
SD (°C) 1.42 0.63 1.2 0.61 0.68 0.64 RMSE (°C) 0.42 0.44 0.47 0.50 0.56
Coefficient of variation (%) 4.97 2.11 4.11 2.06 2.34 2.22 MAE (°C) 0.33 0.35 0.38 0.41 0.45
364
Fig. 5 Performance during
testing showing times series of
WNN and PER models, and in
situ buoy observations
and PER model-based predictions, and compare well with the
in situ measurements, even at the longer lead time.
The qualitative comparison of WNN with ROMS, PER, and
ANN is further quantified with more detail in Figs. 6, 7, and 8 in
terms of the error statistics of r, RMSE, and MAE, respectively,
computed with the in situ SST observations as a basis. The
comparison is at all six locations and all five lead times.
It is clear from Figs. 6 to 8 that the WNN-based SST pre-
dictions not only showed better agreement with actual obser-
vations in terms of higher r, lower RMSE, and MAE than the
SST predictions by ROMS, PER, and ANN models. The r
value of the WNN-based SST predictions ranged from 0.83
to 0.98 for the 5-day ahead forecast, while it ranged from 0.63
to 0.96 for the numerical ROMS-based predictions. The
RMSE of the 5-day-ahead WNN-based prediction ranged
from 0.23 to 0.40 °C, while for the ROMS predictions, it
ranged from 0.52 to 0.94 °C. Finally, the MAE for a 5-day-
ahead prediction based on WNN ranged from 0.18 to 0.32 °C,
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
while for the numerical ROMS prediction, it varied from 0.42
to 0.79 °C.
The statistical significance of the derived correlation coef-
ficients was ascertained through the Bt^ statistic test. The sam-
ple size was 170 days (December 10, 2014 to May 27, 2015)
and, thus, the number of degrees of freedom was 168 and the t
statistic was 1.974 (as per the standard Bt-distribution^ table).
Hence, the critical value γ of the correlation was 0.15 at a 5%
significance level (see Altman and Krzywinski 2015 for
calculation of γ and other details). Because all correlations
were far above this value, it was concluded that they were
statistically significant.
If we look at Fig. 6 that shows the Br^ values at all six
locations, no significant variations are seen across the different
sites, except at station L24, located toward the eastern end of
the domain, where Br^ is relatively much lower. The low cor-
relation at L24 may be caused by a possible lower data quality
rather than by a special local oceanography because the latter
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
Fig. 6 Correlation coefficients
between WNN, ANN, PER,
numerical ROMS-based SST
predictions, and the in situ SST
measurements by buoys (testing
period; lead time varying from 1
to 5 days)
would have been reflected in a high variability of the basic
data statistics in Table 3. It was observed that the ANN models
were trained as per the reanalysis data, and such data at L24
did not have a very good agreement with the corresponding
buoy data.
The above discussion indicates that, in general, the WNN can
make daily SST predictions more efficiently than the numerical
model and the base level persistent and traditional ANN. This
could be because of the capability of the wavelet transform to
provide less confusing input to the subsequent ANN, which on
its own was unable to come up with predictions that are more
accurate. The comparison with the baseline persistent model
365
emphasized the need to pursue more non-linear approaches than
the base level one. Numerical models are usually set up with
initial conditions from other ocean analysis systems or by assim-
ilating the observations into the model setup. However, no such
procedures were used in this ROMS model, which could explain
its less satisfactory performance.
An additional observation from Figs. 6, 7, and 8 is that the
performance of ANN, PER, and ROMS decreases with in-
creasing lead times, which in general does not happen with
WNN. The reduction in the performance is due to the decreas-
ing dependency between neighboring values as the prediction
horizon rises. WNN, on the contrary, de-correlates the signal
366
Fig. 7 The root mean square
error between WNN, ANN, PER,
numerical ROMS-based SST
predictions, and the in situ SST
measurements by buoys (testing
period; lead time varying from 1
to 5 days)
and acts at the root of such dependency; hence, we get almost
similar performance over multiple future times steps.
However, there is a limit in the correlation structure across
neighboring values that can be acted upon by its finite archi-
tecture. Additionally, the given sample size also governs the
ability of the architecture to de-correlate the signals. In this
work, it was further noticed that if we pursue predictions be-
yond 5 days, the errors with WNN also increase. This analysis
is not elaborated here because our objective in this work was
to understand the relative merit of WNN vis-à-vis the ROMS
predictions, which are restricted up to 5 days in advance.
Thus, it can be seen that the very nature of processing input
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368
information in WNN, which consists in filtering the noise in
the time series and using such filtered information as input for
all lead times in one go, is advantageous compared to the
alternative techniques.
It can be noted that the models developed herein are site
specific. Such site-specific models can possibly be developed
at every geographical grid in a given spatial domain, and
therefore, 2D SST fields can be predicted. This was earlier
attempted by Alvarez et al. (2000, 2003, 2004) and
Youzhuan et al. (2008), in which genetic algorithms or statis-
tical regression were used as a modeling tool, rather than
ANN. However, such approach is more suitable for weekly,
Ocean Dynamics (2017) 67:357–368 367

Fig. 8 The mean absolute error

between WNN, ANN, PER,
numerical ROMS-based SST
predictions, and the in situ SST
measurements by buoys (testing
period; lead time varying from 1
to 5 days)

monthly, or seasonal SST predictions, rather than the daily
forecasts of the present study, because at daily intervals, a high
amount of noise gets introduced in satellite data as a result of
cloud covering, airplane wakes, transient ocean structure, and
so forth. Moreover, the sample size required for model cali-
bration becomes very large (Alvarez et al. 2000, 2003, 2004).
5 Conclusions
The development of wavelet neural networks for predicting
daily SST values over 5 days into the future was discussed.
Such networks were trained using reanalysis data and tested
against in situ SST measurements, made at six different loca-
tions in the Indian Ocean.
The level of match between SST predicted by the physical-
ly based numerical model ROMS and in situ data pointed out
to the necessity of improving the numerical forecasts.
The alternative data-driven methods of persistent modeling
and traditional feed-forward back-propagation types of ANN
were also found to exhibit a low performance.
In contrast, the WNN model was in general found to be
more accurate and reliable in SST predictions over a 5-day
lead time and at all six stations. Such predictions were
368
associated with a mean error as low as 0.18–0.32 °C, when all
sites and lead times were viewed together.
Therefore, the WNN approach was found to be valuable as
an addition to numerical methods for SST predictions, when
location-specific information is required.
Acknowledgements This study was made as part of a research project
(no. 13MES001) funded by ESSO-INCOIS, Ministry of Earth Sciences,
Government of India, Hyderabad, India, under the BHigh resolution op-
erational ocean forecast and reanalysis system (HOOFS)^ program. The
authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr. Francis P. A. and Dr. M.
Ravichandran, INCOIS, Hyderabad, in releasing numerical model-based
data and for helpful suggestions in implementing the research project.
Special thanks are due to Mrs. Anuradha Modi and Mr. K Kaviyazhahu
from INCOIS for their help in compiling and providing the ROMS data.
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