Half-precision inference of AI weather prediction models: negligible loss of skill at a fraction of the cost

Stefan Siegert

AI weather prediction models are released with 32-bit (fp32) weights and run in fp32 by default, although current GPUs compute much faster in 16-bit formats. We run five publicly available models -- Aurora, Pangu-Weather, FourCastNet, SFNO and FastNet -- on a single 16 GB GPU from 52 initial dates in 2024, in fp32 and with their networks in half precision (fp16), and verify the forecasts against ERA5. The physical state must stay in fp32: converting the whole model rounds it in physical units, which in fp16 overflows and in bf16 discards meaningful information. With the state, its normalisation and denormalisation in fp32, running the network in fp16 changes the global RMSE by at most 1.4%, and by about 0.5% or less for four of the five models, equivalent to less than one hour of lead time up to day 8 and at most two hours at day 10. The differences show no systematic pattern by region, scale or for tropical and extratropical storms, apart from a small tropical penalty in FourCastNet, and fp16 leaves the CRPS, spread and calibration of Aurora's ensemble almost unchanged. No value overflowed fp16's numeric range (+/-65,504); the largest stay 38 to 544 times below it. A 10-day…