Aurora 1.5: Extending open foundation models for weather and Earth-system applications

Microsoft Research · 6 days ago

Microsoft released Aurora 1.5, an open-source Earth-system foundation model that expands the original Aurora with 22 additional weather variables, hourly temporal resolution, and probabilistic ensemble forecasting capabilities for applications in energy, agriculture, and climate risk. Aurora 1.5's ensemble forecasts outperform the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on 88.9% of evaluated targets and reduced tropical cyclone track errors by roughly one-third compared to the original model. The model is available on GitHub and Hugging Face for researchers while also being integrated into Microsoft Weather services and enterprise solutions through partnerships like BKW for operational weather forecasting.