A Deep Learning Model for Decadal Indian Ocean Dipole

ABSTRACT The rapid and unprecedented warming of the Indian Ocean intensifies climate risks across socio‐economically vulnerable regions, highlighting the need of accurate prediction over the coming decade. This study first assesses the decadal predictability of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) using the Decadal Climate Prediction Project (DCPP) models of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), then develops a deep learning model based on a bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) to enhance its predictive skill. The BiGRU model is designed to process multisource sequential data and is trained on the IOD index derived from DCPP simulations. Results show the MME achieves moderate skill on detrended IOD with an anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) and mean squared skill score (MSSS) of 0.51 and 0.20 during 1963–2020, respectively. The BiGRU model improved the skill with an anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) of 0.88 and a mean squared skill score (MSSS) of 0.72 during the testing period of 2009–2020, and accurately captured extreme IOD events. Based on the enhanced IOD index, we further used it to improve the prediction skill of the IOD‐related Australian rainfall, achieving ACC and MSSS values of 0.90 and 0.70 during 2009–2020, compared to 0.29 and −1.62 from the MME, underscoring the reliability of the BiGRU model for both IOD and related precipitation forecasts.