An interpreter in a large hall doesn't just listen to words. They follow all conversations at once, remember who said what earlier, and anticipate what comes next. SEA-ViT works the same way, except instead of voices, it listens to the ocean.

Ocean currents resemble a conversation: water doesn't move on its own but is driven by wind, tides, and distant climate events. Previously, computers processed each point separately, as if an interpreter heard only one person. SEA-ViT uses two techniques. One layer sees the entire current field at once, like an interpreter scanning the room. Another layer remembers what happened yesterday and a week ago, because it reads data both forward and backward in time.

When El Niño arrives, water off the coast of Thailand moves differently. SEA-ViT gets a hint about this, like an interpreter told that everyone in the hall will speak faster today. On such days, errors are penalized more strictly, so the model learns to be attentive precisely when it matters most.

Now SEA-ViT can predict currents in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. Sailors and fishers will get a forecast that hears the whole ocean, not just a single point near the shore. And then the interpreter in the meeting hall becomes not just a comparison but real work: SEA-ViT translates the language of the sea into the language of safe routes.