| |DECEMBER 202319IBM's geospatial model powers a digital platform for tracking tree planting activities, helping local reforestation efforts, and measuring the impact of carbon sequestrationpattern occurs over many months and over half the globe, while tornado initiation can take minutes and originate from sub-meter-scale processes.The sensors provide a continuous, highly localized record of changing temperatures, wind, and pressure. Satellite images, on the other hand, capture changes in the environment at longer intervals and at a lower resolution. IBM and NASA's proposed baseline model will initially be trained on the MERRA-2 dataset, a combination of high-quality observations and estimates of past weather over the past 40 years. Observational data from fixed weather stations, floating weather balloons, and satellites orbiting the planet will be added later. IBM and NASA are currently experimenting with model architectures and techniques to integrate these different temporal and spatial scales into a single multimodal model.Analyzing Urban Heat Islands in UAEIBM and Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) are working together to map urban heat islands in Abu Dhabi using a fine-tuned version of IBM's geospatial foundations model. The goal is to understand the influence of the local landscape on temperature anomalies. Initial results indicate a reduction in heat island effects and provide insights for future urban design strategies.Reforestation & Water Sustainability in KenyaIn partnership with Kenya's Special Envoy for Climate Change, Ali Mohamed, IBM is supporting the National Tree Growing and Restoration Campaign. The initiative aims to plant 15 billion trees by 2032, especially in critical areas of water towers affected by deforestation. IBM's geospatial model powers a digital platform for tracking tree planting activities, helping local reforestation efforts, and measuring the impact of carbon sequestration.Elevating Climate Resiliency in the UKIn partnership with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Royal Haskoning DHV, IBM is developing AI-driven tools for climate risk assessment in the UK. These tools will initially focus on assessing the effects of weather on air traffic. In addition, the TreesAI research project aims to map areas suitable for planting trees to mitigate surface water flooding and offers a digital planning platform for urban developers.ChallengesCurrent AI models often miss extreme events. This tendency is a known problem with AI models that are trained to ignore outliers. Loss functions minimize the chance of making big mistakes, but then they can also miss extreme events. Methods correcting this tendency have been implemented in smaller models. A challenge from IBM and NASA will extend this work to large base models.Another problem is climate change itself. The past isn't always a great predictor of the future, especially when the climate is warming as fast as it is today. For example, a hurricane in 2024 may have higher wind speeds than a hurricane in 1933. As a result, forecasters may not see it if their models are based solely on historical data. However, AI allows models to be continuously updated as circumstances evolve and new data becomes available.
< Page 9 | Page 11 >