Google says new AI models allow for ‘nearly instantaneous’ weather forecasts
0Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21065095/google-ai-weather-forecast-predictions-rainfall-research
Reported today in The Verge.
Google says new AI models allow for 'nearly instantaneous' weather forecasts
Weather forecasting is notoriously difficult, but in recent years experts have suggested that machine learning could better help sort the sunshine from the sleet. Google is the latest firm to get involved, and in a blog post this week shared new research that it says enables "nearly instantaneous" weather forecasts.
The work is in the early stages and has yet to be integrated into any commercial systems, but early results look promising. In the non-peer-reviewed paper, Google's researchers describe how they were able to generate accurate rainfall predictions up to six hours ahead of time at a 1km resolution from just "minutes" of calculation.
That's a big improvement over existing techniques, which can take hours to generate forecasts, although they do so over longer time periods and generate more complex data.
Speedy predictions, say the researchers, will be "an essential tool needed for effective adaptation to climate change, particularly for extreme weather." In a world increasingly dominated by unpredictable weather patterns, they say, short-term forecasts will be crucial for "crisis management, and the reduction of losses to life and property."
The biggest advantage Google's approach offers over traditional forecasting techniques is speed. The company's researchers compared their work to two existing methods: optical flow (OF) predictions, which look at the motion of phenomenon like clouds, and simulation forecasting, which creates detailed physics-based simulations of weather systems.
The problem with these older methods - particularly the physics-based simulation - is that they're incredibly computationally intensive. Simulations made by US federal agenci