India Harnesses AI for Advanced Weather Forecasting, Climate Action

According to a high-ranking official in the Indian meteorological department, the government of India is conducting experiments with artificial intelligence (AI) to develop climate models that can foresee severe weather conditions.

K.S. Hosalikar, the chief of climate research and services at the India Meteorological Department (IMD), stated in a report published by Reuters that artificial intelligence-based climate models and advisories are expected to enhance forecasting, especially for highly severe weather conditions like floods and droughts.

The IMD currently utilizes forecasting techniques derived from mathematical models and sophisticated computers. As stated in the report, the adoption of AI can provide weather data that is of greater quality and less expensive.

According to Hosalikar, artificial intelligence is already in place to assist in the creation of public notifications for emergencies such as heat waves and illness outbreaks such as malaria. He also stated that the IMD intends to enhance the number of weather observatories that are located at the village level to achieve the goal of obtaining forecasting data with a higher resolution.

The government has already established a facility to test the concept of merging artificial intelligence with conventional weather forecasting, and there are also plans for workshops and conferences.

Accurate weather forecasting is particularly important in a country like India Harnesses AI for Advanced Weather Forecasting, Climate Actiondia, which experiences a wide range of weather patterns, as its population of 1.4 billion people will be more affected by rising temperatures, intensifying heat waves, and worsening droughts.

Given that it is the world’s second-largest producer of rice, wheat, and sugar, India also plays a significant role in the production of agricultural goods around the globe.

At the most recent Wired Impact Conference, which took place in London, Sims Witherspoon, who is the climate action lead for Google’s DeepMind division, proposed a new strategy that she referred to as the “Understand, Optimize, Accelerate” framework.

This framework outlines the stages for employing artificial intelligence to combat climate change. The weather forecasting industry has already utilized emerging technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency to improve the efficiency of data collection for weather forecasting.

WeatherXM, a startup company, has already established hundreds of decentralized weather stations all around the world. These stations collect data from the surrounding area and give the owners utility tokens in exchange.