India's AI Climate Tool - Climate Crisis 247

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With the advent of Google’s AI-powered GraphCast, medium-range weather forecasts could become substantially more accurate. According to Reuters, India has begun to use this technology. Since India is among the most climate crisis-affected nations in the world and the largest by population at 1.4 billion people, its new plan may have remarkable value to its massive number of residents.

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Several of India’s largest cities posted extremely high temperatures in 2023, another example of the nation’s climate problems. The temperatures in Delhi, a city of over 11 million people, exceed 110 degrees F in May. In some areas around the city, the temperature rose to 115 degrees F, which many humans cannot survive for any period if they are in the open and without shade.

According to IQAir, the air quality in Delhi is 395. A figure above 301 is the most dangerous on the IQ Air index and is defined as “Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected.” Several other cities in India have numbers nearly as high. And the current situation is not an outlier. Parts of India suffer from the severe air pollution problem each year.

It is now India’s monsoon season. The most powerful monsoons kill people primarily due to the flooding they cause. The Indian Meteorological Department (MET) reported that more than 16 inches of rain fell over two days last week. That figure is staggering for any part of the world.

Anecdotal evidence does not provide a complete picture of India’s weather crises. However, the numbers have become more frequent and more dangerous.

The author of the Reuters story wrote: “The India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides forecasts based on mathematical models using supercomputers. Using AI with an expanded observation network could help generate higher-quality forecast data at lower cost.”

The AI approach continues to face one major challenge. Data quality to forecast weather events is often poor or inadequate. Improving India’s weather forecast trouble still has one more hurdle to clear.