Deep Learning and Wavelet Transform Combined With Multichannel Satellite Images for Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimation

Tropical cyclone (TC) is a highly catastrophic weather event, and accurate estimation of intensity is of great significance. The current proposed TC intensity estimation model focuses on training using satellite images from single or two channels, and the model cannot fully capture features related to TC intensity, resulting in low accuracy. To this end, we propose a double-layer encoder–decoder model for estimating the intensity of TC, which is trained using images from three channels: infrared, water vapor, and passive microwave. The model mainly consists of three modules: wavelet transform enhancement module, multichannel satellite image fusion module, and TC intensity estimation module, which are used to extract high-frequency information from the source image, generate a three-channel fused image, and perform TC intensity estimation. To validate the performance of our model, we conducted extensive experiments on the TCIR dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed model has MAE and RMSE of 3.76 m/s and 4.62 m/s for TC intensity estimation, which are 15.70% and 20.07% lower than advanced Dvorak technology, respectively. Therefore, the model proposed in this article has great potential in accurately estimating TC intensity.