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Can AI help us predict extreme weather?

AI models are revolutionizing weather forecasts.

by Laura Bult

Laura Bult
Laura Bult came to the video team via Vox’s Netflix show, Explained , and previously worked on documentary series for National Geographic and Zero Point Zero Production.

We’ve learned how to predict weather over the past century by understanding the science that governs Earth’s atmosphere and harnessing enough computing power to generate global forecasts. But in just the past three years, AI models from companies like Google, Huawei, and Nvidia that use historical weather data have been releasing forecasts rivaling those created through traditional forecasting methods.

This video explains the promise and challenges of these new models built on artificial intelligence rather than numerical forecasting, particularly the ability to foresee extreme weather.

Additional reading:

  • Here are the papers that describe the models mentioned in the video.
  • Google’s GraphCast
  • Huawei’s Pangu-Weather
  • Nvidia’s FourCastNet
  • Here is the announcement of the ERA5 dataset, released by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in 2020.
  • We interviewed Aaron Hill over email for this video. Hill is involved in developing responsible AI for environmental science via AI2ES.
  • Google has also developed a weather forecasting model called Nowcasting, which is already embedded in its weather products specifically for short-term precipitation forecasts.
  • If you’re interested in learning more about the history of how we developed weather forecasting, I’d recommend The Weather Machine by Andrew Blum.

You can find this video and all of Vox’s videos on YouTube.

This video is sponsored by Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Microsoft has no editorial influence on our videos, but their support makes videos like these possible.

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