Transparent Machine Learning: Training and Refining an Explainable Boosting Machine to Identify Overshooting Tops in Satellite Imagery

An Explainable Boosting Machine (EBM) is an interpretable machine learning (ML) algorithm that has benefits in high risk applications but has not yet found much use in atmospheric science. The overall goal of this work is twofold: (1) explore the use of EBMs, in combination with feature engineering, to obtain interpretable, physics-based machine learning algorithms for meteorological applications; (2) illustrate these methods for the detection of overshooting top (OTs) in satellite imagery.