diff --git a/src/cloudcasting/dataset.py b/src/cloudcasting/dataset.py
index 13f2e9b..b649976 100644
--- a/src/cloudcasting/dataset.py
+++ b/src/cloudcasting/dataset.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ def load_satellite_zarrs(zarr_path: list[str] | tuple[str] | str) -> xr.Dataset:
 
     if isinstance(zarr_path, list | tuple):
         ds = xr.combine_nested(
-            [xr.open_dataset(path, engine="zarr") for path in zarr_path],
+            [xr.open_dataset(path, engine="zarr", chunks="auto") for path in zarr_path],
             concat_dim="time",
             combine_attrs="override",
             join="override",
@@ -296,6 +296,8 @@ def __init__(
         val_period: list[str | None] | tuple[str | None] | None = None,
         test_period: list[str | None] | tuple[str | None] | None = None,
         nan_to_num: bool = False,
+        pin_memory: bool = False,
+        persistent_workers: bool = False,
     ):
         """A lightning DataModule for loading past and future satellite data
 
@@ -311,6 +313,11 @@ def __init__(
             train_period: Date range filter for train dataloader.
             val_period: Date range filter for val dataloader.
             test_period: Date range filter for test dataloader.
+            pin_memory:  If True, the data loader will copy Tensors into device/CUDA pinned memory
+                before returning them
+            persistent_workers: If True, the data loader will not shut down the worker processes
+                after a dataset has been consumed once. This allows to maintain the workers Dataset
+                instances alive.
         """
         super().__init__()
 
@@ -339,12 +346,12 @@ def __init__(
             sampler=None,
             batch_sampler=None,
             num_workers=num_workers,
-            pin_memory=False,
+            pin_memory=pin_memory,
             drop_last=False,
             timeout=0,
             worker_init_fn=None,
             prefetch_factor=prefetch_factor,
-            persistent_workers=False,
+            persistent_workers=persistent_workers,
         )
 
         self.nan_to_num = nan_to_num