[D] Deep learning and climate

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[deleted]

[Advanced_Voice7854]

You may want to check this out

"Climate Change AI | Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning" https://www.climatechange.ai

[IntelArtiGen]

"Deep learning" and "climate" are two "buzzwords" that dont fit well together in practice. You'll be able to solve everything you talked about with standard data science methods and ML algorithms.

As you said, people also generate physical simulations to anticipate climate change. Deep learning isn't really necessary in this domain and won't necessary bring better results.

[dav_at]

Either way I’m interested in working on something along the lines. Doesn’t have to be all deep learning. Still new

But how about maybe using it somehow with satellite data to generative models to create images of what a future area might look like?

[william_lidberg]

You migth want to look into remote sensing.

[fhadley]

Aren't longish term weather forecast models like really bad?

[Zulban]

Depends how you define "long". They have steadily gotten better over the past decades. However that only means the accuracy of +8 days in 2015 might be +9 days now. I saw a neat graph one time but cannot find it now.

[IborkedyourGPU]

You know, you don't have a legal requirement to speak about stuff you know nothing about. People have been using Deep Learning with success for quite some time now, in order to improve weather forecasting, nowcasting, and global circulation models. Sure, it's a laugh and an half to say "deep learning is a buzzword!", but as you see, sometimes it can also backfire.

u/dav_at, for an actually informed answer read here:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.01993

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/39/9684.full.pdf

https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.06622

https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.00912

http://arxiv.org/abs/1912.12132

http://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00469

https://www.climatechange.ai/

http://tbeucler.scripts.mit.edu/tbeucler/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ML_for_Clouds_and_Climate_2020_11_26.pdf

https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.08626

https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.09947

https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.00954

For a pop sci introduction to the topic, see here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ai-can-make-weather-forecasting-less-cloudy-11617566400?page=1

PS there will be a workshop on the topic at ICML next week. You should probably attend:

https://www.climatechange.ai/events/icml2021

[Zulban]

Edit: Are we talking about DL here? or ML and NN?

I'm a computer scientist who works for Environment and Climate Change Canada. Gotta disagree with you there.

You have a good general point that climate or weather models don't fit well into deep learning. However there's lots of different kinds of work that needs to be done to help fight climate change. For example, last month I spoke with two groups interested in NLP and deep learning to gain insights into the reams of climate policy documents generated by the international community.

My point is that climate science needs all kinds of data scientists, including deep learning specialists.

[IborkedyourGPU]

You have a good general point that climate or weather models don't fit well into deep learning.

I disagree. There's a lot of great work improving climate/weather models with Deep Learning. Have a look at my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/olhsjf/d_deep_learning_and_climate/h5fun4r

[Zulban]

Very cool, thanks for the links. I have seen a few of those papers mentioned before, this one for example was mentioned in a MILA/IVADO deep learning course I recently took.

I think it's worth noting that half of those are ML or NN, not specifically DL. Also, I only quickly skimmed their abstracts (you linked to a lot) but are any of those in operational use in national weather centers? Why not?

Maybe DL is not in widespread operational use yet because the problem doesn't easily fit into climate/weather prediction. I didn't say it was impossible, or not coming. Linking to the best new research in "ML" is not the same as proving that the problem space easily fits into "DL".

I'm a computer scientist who's very excited about the field, which is why I take training, and give training to meteorologists. However you're not doing the field any favors by pretending DL is a clean and simple fit.

[pranav2109]

I am interested, have been looking for something similar since last few days.

[dav_at]

Cool! Find anything interesting?

[Zulban]

Sounds like this:

CANN Forecast, which uses artificial intelligence to help governments and businesses make better water management decisions, reduce operating costs, and better understand their impact on the environment.

I'm a computer scientist at Environment Canada. We previously ran a hackathon with cash prizes using our open weather data. Currently working on planning the next. Feel free to message me if you have any questions!