Diffusion Model Emulates High-Resolution Climate Precipitation Patterns

Researchers present CPMGEM, a diffusion-model emulator that downscales 60 km global climate model inputs to 8.8 km daily-mean precipitation, trained on 2.2 km convection-permitting simulations over England and Wales covering 1980–2080 under a high-emissions scenario. The stochastic emulator reproduces spatial structure, intensity distributions, and extreme-event statistics up to ~100-year return periods, and transfers to GCM inputs, offering lower-cost high-resolution precipitation for large ensembles and uncertainty sampling.