Aurora 1.5: Expanding the Open Foundation Model for Weather and Earth System Applications

Microsoft has announced Aurora 1.5, a major expansion of its existing Earth system foundation model. This update adds 22 new weather variables related to energy, agriculture, transportation, and climate risk, providing a much broader view of atmospheric conditions.

Key updates include:

• Improved Temporal Resolution: Support for precise hourly forecasting
• Ensemble Forecasting: Added probabilistic forecasting capability that shows the range and likelihood of outcomes through multiple simulations
• Open Source Ecosystem Support: Model checkpoints released on GitHub, enabling researchers and developers to directly evaluate and extend the model

Aurora 1.5 is built on research from Microsoft Research AI for Science, and is connected to Microsoft Weather's data and infrastructure, designed to be usable in real operational environments as well. This is expected to contribute to improved decision-making capabilities around climate and weather-related risks.