India To Experiment With AI For Accurate Weather Forecasts: Report (Photo by NOAA on Unsplash)India is reportedly testing artificial intelligence (AI) to develop climate models for better weather forecasting. Reuters, citing a weather official, reported that India is making this significant move as the country is witnessing an upsurge in torrential rains, floods, and droughts.
As per the estimates by the Centre for Science and Environment, extreme weather events have claimed nearly 3,000 lives this year alone. Reuters also reported that weather agencies around the globe are focusing on artificial intelligence as it can reduce expenses and improve speed. Britain’s Met Office has earlier stated that AI has the potential to revolutionise weather forecasting.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the nodal agency that tracks weather developments across India, currently provides forecasts based on mathematical models using supercomputers. By integrating AI into an expanded network of observation stations, higher-quality forecast data can be generated at a lower cost.
KS Hosalikar, head of climate research and services at IMD, told Reuters that AI-based climate models and advisories being developed will improve forecasts. KS Hosalikar also said that IMD has used AI technology for public alerts on heatwaves and diseases like malaria. He also added that the agency plans to increase weather observatories, offering data at the village level for potentially more accurate forecasts. Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, told Reuters that no AI model for location-specific magnification of existing model forecasts is feasible without having high-resolution data in space and time.
It is worth mentioning that Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) unit has recently introduced an AI-powered weather prediction tool named GraphCast. The main highlight of this AI model is that it has the potential to predict weather conditions up to 10 days in advance in less than a minute.