NASA announces new AI-driven weather, climate modeling tools

Mike Heuer
·2 min read
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UPI
NASA's new AI-driven weather and climate model will help communities around the globe to prepare for and mitigate damages caused by extreme weather, such as Hurricane Ian that dropped more than a foot of rain along the Space Coast east of Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 29, 2022. File Photo by Joe Marino/UPI

May 22 (UPI) -- An artificial intelligence model developed by NASA, IBM Research and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory will support improved local and regional weather and climate models.

The Privthi-weather-climate model uses a broad set of data and AI learning capabilities to apply patterns identified in the data sets to a variety of additional weather and climate scenarios, NASA officials announced Wednesday.

"Advancing NASA's Earth science for the benefit of humanity means delivering actionable science in ways that are useful to people,organizations and communities," Karen St. Germain, direct of NASA's Earth science division, said in an online statement.

"The rapid changes we are witnessing on our home planet demand this strategy to meet the urgency of the moment," St. Germain said. "The NASA foundation model will help us produce a tool that people can use."

She said the new weather climate model will enable people, communities and organizations to better prepare, respond and mitigate the effects of weather.

The Privi-weather-climate model enables researchers to support various climate applications used to detect and predict severe weather patterns and natural disasters, according to NASA.

The new model also helps create targeted forecasts by using localized weather observations, improved spatial resolution at the regional level and improved representations of how physical processes affect weather and climate.

"These transformational AI models are reshaping data accessibility by significantly lowering the barrier of entry to using NASA's scientific data," said Kevin Murphy, NASA Science Mission Directorate's chief science officer.

The Privthi-weather-climate model applies the complex dynamics of atmospheric physics even when some information is missing to generate models for weather and climate without degrading resolution.

"Our open approach to sharing these models invites the global community to explore and harness the capabilities we've cultivated," Murphy said.

He said the open approach ensures "NASA's investment enriches and benefits all."