Over the last few decades, artificial intelligence has made remarkable progress in its development. Gone are the days when people simply marveled over all the potential that artificial intelligence promised with its advancement. Nowadays, scientists are thinking practically and trying to apply artificial intelligence to make technology swifter and more adept.
Lately, scientists and experts are discussing all the advantages one could get from applying artificial intelligence in the field of weather forecasting. Dale Durran is a professor of atmospheric sciences who has made the announcement that state of the art facilities can be achieved for weather forecasting if one manages to use artificial intelligence in the right way.
At the present, weather forecasting is done on a short term method. The current day weather forecasting information is used to forecast the next day’s weather. This information can be used by artificial intelligence to predict the weather pattern of upto two weeks in the future. AI has the ability to improve the speed and the accuracy with which such predictions are made.
Durran commented on the matter that, “a machine learning approach has the most potential to change how we do sub-seasonal and seasonal forecasts.” Such an approach can bring great leverage to our society at large.
In our society several decisions are made with the knowledge of the coming weather. Industrial and commercial work in the agricultural field, hydropower generation, energy supply, flood and natural disaster control are some of the important works that cannot be done without an accurate estimate of the weather forecast. Using Artificial intelligence will provide a great advantage in this field. For example, if heavy rain is predicted then the water in the dams can be regulated from early onwards to prevent flooding during the monsoon season. Similarly, in agriculture certain crops are harvested in scanty rainfall and get damaged in case of heavy rain.
Durran’s model of weather forecasting with Artificial Intelligence involves implanting satellite imagery on earth’s periphery. It will allow accurate forecasting which is not possible through the equation based forecasting model that is currently at use. This model was first proposed in the 1920s by Lewis Richardson. However, this model has its limitations due to its elementary mathematical approach and hand calculation requirements. Durran’s model seeks to remedy the limitations of it and provide a more holistic solution to the earth-atmosphere scientific field.
Durran’s proposed idea of using Artificial Intelligence to forecast weather is still at its initial stages of formulation. However, he is hopeful because the progression of this model has been unchallenged and successful so far. He credits his graduate student Jonathan Weyn for looking into this idea at first.